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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25915897">Implicit Demand for Proof</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperialhuxness/pseuds/imperialhuxness'>imperialhuxness</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(Don't Worry), (this is still a love story), Angst with a Happy Ending, Aromantic Characters, Asexual Characters, Control Issues, Dual Timeline, Exiles, Fix-It, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mental Health Issues, Politics, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Power Dynamics, Suicidal Thoughts, Touch-Starved</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 03:07:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>98,182</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25915897</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperialhuxness/pseuds/imperialhuxness</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>As Hux attempts to cope with the monotony of exile, the former Supreme Leader shows up on his doorstep, desperate to reclaim what they've both lost. </p><p>But the past doesn't die quietly, and the Force has a will of its own.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Armitage Hux &amp; Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>146</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>267</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Matches</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>My usual disclaimer: dark start here, but the happy ending is coming. Detailed content warnings will be in the end notes for each chapter--stay safe! &lt;3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>(now)</b>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux dials up the radiator more for noise than heat. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The pops and hisses of steam through the valves are nothing compared with the clamour of briefers, the chime of datapad alerts, or even the persistent, underfoot thrum of a hyperdrive, but they’re better than the silence of night outside Bonadan City. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(Anything is, at this point.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux braces his hands on his knees and stands to the burnt-sulfur scent of the wall unit’s boiler crackling to life. The sound won’t get much louder than this--than clicks and whispers--but it will fill the quiet of his housing pod.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He chafes his clammy hands above the radiator’s slats, then pulls his sweater tighter around his shoulders. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>For now, the silence may be the most unbearable part of night here, but with winter drawing on in earnest, the lack of centralized heating in the company housing pods may become stiff competition. It’s a basic fucking amenity, but it isn’t as if AndTec cares about anything but producing as much plasteel droid plating as mathematically possible. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Fortunately, that also means their employee vetting standards are practically nonexistent. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As long as you’ve got functioning limbs and the mental wherewithal to pull a lever or seal a crate, the foreman will hand you a tinted protective visor and the lock cylinders to a vacant pod. Few questions asked besides </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Can you work from six to six tomorrow?”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When you’re a newly-unemployed military officer with nothing more important to do than earn credits and hide your face, your answer is </span>
  <em>
    <span>yes, sir.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Pathetic</span>
  </em>
  <span>, his head had hissed five months ago, standing across from the foreman’s cluttered desk, in a chem-lit office with mold crawling up the wall. </span>
  <em>
    <span>You’ve come to this, yes-sir-ing an oily Duro for eight credits an hour and a roof over your head.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But even then, even with the blaster holes to his chest and thigh still healing, still aching at night, he’d known this was--this </span>
  <em>
    <span>is-- </span>
  </em>
  <span>no one’s fault but his own. (Not even Ren’s.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The radiator diffuses its first wave of heat; the warmer air leaches into his fingertips like a numbing agent, slow and all but unnoticeable. His dry, splitting knuckles will start to feel it in a moment, but for now the warmth is a relief from the perspiration that’s cooled on his palms, his forehead, down the sides of his neck.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(The dreams always wake him up like this, off-kilter. Sweating in the cold. Gasping in the silence.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Moonlight refracts through the frost on the window above the radiator, white on Hux’s hands, white on the radiator’s dark, chipping paint. Steam pops inside the metal valves. He’s freezing cold, and the silence has seeped into his pores like an itch.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He can’t just stand here. If he stands here all night, he will lose his mind. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And the heat’s started to sting, anyway. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He puts his back to the radiator and the window with an inevitable chill, facing the tangled knolls of his mussed bed. And the chrono beside it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Fuck.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The blue-glowing display blinks </span>
  <em>
    <span>1131.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>2331 hours, his conditioning still translates.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>2331.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>it </span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He has the whole night ahead of him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(Sleep won’t be returning, not tonight, not after waking up from </span>
  <em>
    <span>that. </span>
  </em>
  <span>)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He runs a hand through his hair, scoffs disbelief into the stillness of the room.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Insomnia is a low-level blip compared to the rest of the shitshow that began when Starkiller crumbled under his feet. It isn’t even an unfamiliar concern.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But in the past, he hardly noticed it. When there were reports to read, commissions to sign off on, or talks to schedule, the time filled easily, until he was so exhausted sleep came heavy and dreamless. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was always work. There was always </span>
  <em>
    <span>something.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(It took him weeks on Bonadan to stop his hand from straying to a datapad that isn’t here, to compulsively check the gamma-shift whereabouts of Ren, who’s dead.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But now there’s no inbox clutter. No task left for alpha shift. No unstable mystic who might be roaming the halls, damaging the ship or the crew or himself. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s the quiet.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux picks at a loose thread on his sleeve, stops himself before a row of stitches unravels around his wrist. (</span>
  <em>
    <span> You’ve only got one sweater, idiot.)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>One sweater, one blaster, one pan for instant polystarch bread.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A year ago, he could never have imagined any of this.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A year ago, the Order was </span>
  <em>
    <span>winning.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(But a year ago, the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Finalizer </span>
  </em>
  <span>was still intact.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(A year ago, Ren was--)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Stop.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux never meant to choose this. He never </span>
  <em>
    <span>meant to </span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But six months ago, he woke up.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>###</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>At first, the ceiling looked white.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The ceiling looked white, but Hux blinked again--twice--and it was just the glare of lampdisks dialed above eighty percent. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The light stung his eyes, sent a new frisson of pain through the throbbing in his skull. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>His head.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Fuck.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He must have hit it when he--</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Memory rushed back over him: the captured Resistance operatives, the bolt to the leg. The tattered shreds of a plan gone wrong. The bridge. Pryde.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The bolt to the chest.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>A glance down showed a bacta patch centered mere centimeters off from his heart, charmarks surrounding the bare skin.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>This was medbay.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Obviously.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He didn’t die on impact, so he was transported to medbay. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>It explained the harsh lighting, for one thing, but for another it explained the unfamiliar bed he was lying on, the white sheet covering everything below his freshest wound, and the needle jutting out of the crook of his right arm, connected to--he squinted to read the label on the bag--a saline drip.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The bacta on both of his wounds must have been doing its job, as the only pain he felt was--for the moment--the dull ache in his skull.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The stringent scents of bacta and disinfectants, however, hung heavy on the air, nauseating. Hux shut his eyes against a wave of vertigo, opened them only when it had passed. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>His breath came shallow, unsteady. He forced an inhale--deep, prolonged--then an exhale, attempting to calm his fluttering pulse.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>All right.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>All right.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He was alive.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He was alive, and he wasn’t supposed to be.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>(Which was nothing new, but still.)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Pryde’s shot--he was reasonably certain--had been meant to end him right then, right there. Traitor publicly denounced, traitor publicly--immediately, ruthlessly--exterminated. (Hux could only guess that that was an Imperial policy resurrected with the Emperor himself.)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>There could be only one of two reasons why Hux hadn’t yet been finished off:</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>1. Pryde was too preoccupied with his masters’ preparations to check the status of a man he personally presumed dead; or </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>2. Hux was being saved for Ren’s return.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Fuck,” he breathed, over a beep from the vitals monitor beside the drip. “</span>
  </em>
  <span>Fuck</span>
  <em>
    <span>.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>So it would be a proper execution.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p><em><span>He had known this was a worst-case possibility from the moment he’d started </span></em><span>typing</span> <em><span>his message to the Resistance. But he’d imagined that--if it happened--it would be immediate. </span></em></p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Ren would take one look at him, see right through him like he always had, and impale him on the spot.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“</span>
  </em>
  <span>Why?</span>
  <em>
    <span>” Ren would ask, through his furious, childish tears. </span>
  </em>
  <span>“Why would you do this?” (To me.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Hux would have no answer that he hadn’t already given a thousand times over the years, in a thousand arguments.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He would have none now, either. No defense, definitely no plea for mercy. (As if he’d even be given the chance to speak when he’d committed a crime worse than murder.)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It might as well have been murder--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(Stop.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He twisted his fingers into the sheets, sat up straighter with a shock of pain to his ribcage, to what must be bruises along his spine from where he hit the floor. His heart rabbited as the truth coalesced: </span>
  </em>
  <span>You will be executed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>If discovered alive, you will be executed. You will be made a public example of. Ren will cry, and Ren will kill you, and you will deserve it because--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>No.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Perhaps.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>It didn’t matter.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>And even if he weren’t to be executed, it would only be because the Steadfast --medbay and all--would be blown to stardust by Resistance forces over Exegol.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He knew that.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The one scenario he hadn’t calculated was the scenario in which he had an out upon discovery.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Or, more precisely, in which Pryde was the one to put the pieces together, not Ren. (He wasn’t sure yet whether that stung: whether Ren’s obliviousness was the result of apathy or of total trust.)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(It didn’t matter.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He had an out. A margin in which there was possibly a way to escape a second public punishment for a failure greater than the loss of Starkiller.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Adrenaline surged through his bloodstream, combat-wired survival instincts kicking into full throttle. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Get out, run, go--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>But why? Go where? </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>One doesn’t come back from being declared a traitor to the First Order. What would be the point, now that everything was over.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Now that you fucked it up like you fuck up everything you idiot--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“ Stop,”</span>
  <em>
    <span> Hux said aloud, collecting himself. “All right.” He breathed in. Then out. “All right.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>His pulse pounded crazily in his throbbing skull. What came next didn’t matter yet. The only thing that counted was the imminent threat to his life (and more importantly, to his dignity).</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>And his window to act was narrowing by the second.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He sat up fully, flexing his fingers. His gaze darted around the stark room, catalogued a single entrance, locked--fortunately--under codes no higher than standard. His jacket lay on an in-wall counter beside the door, his datapad on top of it. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Apparently, he was fully expected to die in here. There appeared to be no procedures in place to detain him as a prisoner or criminal or dishonorable discharge. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>That helped matters. Now just to get to his effects.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He sucked in a breath, bit his lip, and wrapped his left hand around the needle port jutting out of his opposite arm. He forced his eyes to stay open, despite the initial flare of pain--medically inadvisable procedures shouldn’t be done blind.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He could do this.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He set his teeth and pulled.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The needle emerged from his arm with a sting and a bead of blood. He slapped the medical tape that had been holding it in back over the puncture before he could start bleeding out. A single drop of red, however, fell from the tip of the needle onto the white sheet, the only color in the room.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Whatever.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Hux let the needle fall, lowered the bed’s rails, and swung his feet over the side. Gooseflesh spread across his chest and arms at the burst of cold, but he didn’t have time to pay it attention.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He was still in his torn jodhpurs, and his boots were on the floor beneath his jacket and datapad. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Great, fantastic, perfect.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He splayed his hands on either side of him, bracing himself to stand. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>But as soon as he was upright, the room reeled around him, blurring into a circle of gray, a single point of light at the end of his tunneling vision as the blood drained from his head.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>You’re going to pass out, you’re going to pass out and hit your head again, they’ll find you--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Damnit,” he hissed. He clenched his fists and held still until the dizziness had passed.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>His pulse thudded in his ears like running footfalls. Now that he was putting weight on his leg again, the pain had returned, the plasma burning through the wound all over again. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>But he was standing.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Without the cane.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The bacta must have done that much for the tissue damage, at least.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Time to test it.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He splayed his fingers at each side for balance, then took a small, experimental step forward, barefoot and unsupported on the black tile.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>It worked.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He ignored the shockwaves of pain rippling up his thigh and crossed the floor to the counter and mechanically grabbed his jacket. The plasma hadn’t damaged the clasps, so it was still wearable, except for the massive fucking charhole in the left breast.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>But whatever. He’d have to change out of it as soon as he got to--</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Shit.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(Don’t think that far ahead, just move.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>To wherever. It would do to cover him on the walk to the escape pods a deck away.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>There was no undershirt--that, he assumed, with a flare of shame he tamped down, they’d had to cut off of him. But it would be fine to do without it temporarily. It would have to be.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He set aside his datapad and shrugged on the tattered jacket. The hole gaped directly over the bacta patch, but whatever. He clasped it with shaking fingers and a jolt of pain as he moved his left arm, but he got it done.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>His dogtags lay on the counter. He slipped them on and under his jacket, cold against his skin, for disposal later. It would look suspicious if they were the only thing left.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>What’s going to look suspicious is your hobbling down the corridors, when you just got publicly denounced as a traitor and shot, what’s going to look suspicious is--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He cut off the panic mid-thought. It wouldn’t serve any purpose.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>It was either definitely die if he stayed in here, or only probably die if he attempted to escape.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And it’s only one deck away--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He inhaled.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>His boots were next to his feet, and he was going to have to bend down to put them on. He was going to have to bend down, and then have to stand back up, and the torn tissue next to his sternum was already screaming in protest. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>But it wasn’t as if he could leave the room barefoot.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He braced himself--as if for a blow, as if he were five years old again--bent, and snagged them in a single fluid movement. The pain flared as black static fogged his vision again.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He waited it out, then limped back to the bed, boots in one hand and datapad in the other. He perched on the end and slipped a jittering hand inside the left one for the sock. There was nothing.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Your socks, they took your fucking socks, they took--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Hux jammed his foot inside without one. There wasn’t time to worry about socks.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Or anything but getting </span>
  </em>
  <span>out</span>
  <em>
    <span>.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He laced first one boot, then the other, with jittering fingers, then picked up his datapad.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Please let my biometric still work, please let them not have deactivated--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>It worked, even despite the quiver of his thumb as he pressed down on the print reader. The personnel system’s administrative snags had their benefits.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>His mind spun at lightspeed as his home screen opened, outpacing the bacta haze. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Were he to die in here, the uniform would be incinerated with his body, but the datapad would be wiped and reused. He had two things to do on here, then he’d leave it as it was.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>First, he pulled up the Steadfast ’s inventory application.  </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Escape Pods &gt;&gt; Delta Bay &gt;&gt; Number 871 &gt;&gt; Delete Record</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>There was no longer an Escape Pod 871, officially speaking. When it launched, therefore--and immediately jumped to hyperspace--no alarms would sound, no guards be alerted. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>No one would be taking inventory with preparations for Exegol in full swing. (And after Exegol, if the Resistance succeeded, there would be no more Steadfast. )</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The pod clear for use, Hux opened the personnel application, pulled up his own file.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>A slightly dated holo portrait stared up at him, blue-cast and unnatural. Surrounding data boxes listed his promotion record, clearances held, stipend earnings statements. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The past thirty years--his life, all he’d ever had--reduced to a handful of pop-ups in twelve-point type.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He wasn’t here for any of it. He couldn’t think about it.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>There was an imminent threat, a monster charging toward him and no Ren to step in between. (Ren </span>
  </em>
  <span>was</span>
  <em>
    <span> the monster.)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He couldn’t think about that, either.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Could think of nothing but the next sequence of taps. He brought up the </span>
  </em>
  <span>Personal Details</span>
  <em>
    <span> tab. He stopped at the first dropdown box. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He didn’t think.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Status: Active Duty,</span>
  <em>
    <span> it read.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>His hands shook, but he pulled down the options. Selected the second. Saved the change.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Go now, you have to </span>
  <em>
    <span>go</span>
  </em>
  <span>--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He spared the details tab a final glance:</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>GEN Hux, A</span>
  <em>
    <span>, it read.  </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Status: Deceased</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>###</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux gives up and turns the light back on, at least in his bedroom.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A single yellowish lampdisk fizzles above the rumpled bed, shows out the grime on the walls, the chipping paint of the radiator, the door and window frames.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He turns on his heel and paces back into the relative darkness of the rest of the pod. He can cover its length--to the shadows of the living room and back--in less than twenty standard seconds. He knows from experience. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s always like this, after the dreams.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In another five months, he’ll have paced footprints into the cheap linoliplast flooring, if the insomnia keeps up like this. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And the dreams, at any rate, show no sign of stopping.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He crosses into the short, dim hallway then into the living room. Clouds have covered the moon, throwing the room into deep shadow, but Hux would know these steps blind. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Rounding the room’s far end, he shivers in the relative cold, away from the radiator, gooseflesh crawling under his sweater. He pulls it tighter.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>It would be warmer in bed--</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It would, certainly--if he could stand the slow dread of lying there in the still, cold darkness, waiting either for sleep to come (and with it more of </span>
  <em>
    <span>this </span>
  </em>
  <span>), or for the hours to pass. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s still waiting this way, but it’s more natural to keep moving. He’ll stop when he gets tired. If he gets tired enough to risk it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He reaches the far wall of the living room and loops back, passing the darkened entrance to the small kitchen, then heads into the hall and past the ‘fresher.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It shouldn’t be like this.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s no stranger to nightmares. They bothered him well into his twenties: the Commandant, the combat sims, the first sniper missions, strange distortions of his body.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But mostly the Commandant. Mostly memories.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>What’s taken their place is...something else.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Just </span>
  </em>
  <span>dreams.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That should be better. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It </span>
  <em>
    <span>should.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But not when every other night he’s waking up to--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>(Earth collapsing under his feet--)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>(The </span>
  </em>
  <span>Supremacy, </span>
  <em>
    <span>cleft, above a darkened ecumenopolis--)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>(Red--)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>(Ren--)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>(Cracks running up the walls, the columns, the altars, of a temple he’s never seen; the claustrophobia of falling, crushing rock; burial alive--)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>(“Hux, wake </span>
  </em>
  <span>up--"</span>
  <em>
    <span>)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Waking up to silence, nothingness, unbearable </span>
  <em>
    <span>calm </span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Back in the bedroom, he fidgets with the light control, considering. He works tomorrow, and he should really try again. It’s not even oh one hundred; he could still get in a few solid hours.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>It’ll catch up with you tomorrow--</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But it isn’t as if work requires any actual </span>
  <em>
    <span>exertion</span>
  </em>
  <span>, mental or physical.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He leaves the light on, but the bed unmade, and circles the frigid bedroom floor, hardly warmed by the radiator. The gray linoliplast has cracked in places, revealing seams of yellow glue and duracrete foundation beneath.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The whole pod is in shambles. (Hue gets exactly what he pays for.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(He gets exactly what he’s due.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>you fool, you failure, could you plan no better than--</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux shuts his eyes and walls off the thought, pausing by the radiator to warm his hands until they sting. He flexes his fingers over the metal, and heat leaches into his skin.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He has a plan.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(Never mind that it’s a sad shadow of those that came before it.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It </span>
  <em>
    <span>is </span>
  </em>
  <span>a plan, and it’s more than what he had when he fled the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Steadfast </span>
  </em>
  <span>for the temporary shelter of Nar Shaddaa.</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>###</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“--this Primeday only at the Netherworld Gentlebeings’ Club!”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Buy one Deela’s Jet Juice, get the second for the low price of--”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Breaking News--”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The cacophony of Escape Pod 871’s public HoloNet feed woke Hux slowly, infecting the darkness behind his eyes until he couldn’t ignore it anymore. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>His whole body felt stiff, as if he’d been encased in carbonite. A dull ache pulsed between his ribs. He blinked once, twice. The blur of the pod’s controls resolved in front of him.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Above the dash, out the viewport, sparkled the sallow lights of Hutta Town, yellow beacons in the smog. A few duracrete cloudscrapers aspired above it, strung in between with flimsy skyslums, wreathed in smoke and exhaust.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Breaking News: a resurgent Imperial fleet reportedly commanded by none other than--”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Now for a classic hit from Snograth and--”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Hux turned his attention to the HoloNet receptor, clearly searching for the strongest signal now that it was back in range of open broadcasts. He dialed it back to the news frequency as strangled electroharp notes crackled onto the airwave.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“--on the obscure world Exegol, located deep in the Western Reaches. Multiple First Order ships deployed throughout the galaxy have already been captured or destroyed in follow-on Resistance operations, liberating worlds by the dozens from--”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Hux’s breath snagged in his throat. The city lights blurred to silver swirls. It had started.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>You loaded the rebels’ fucking gun, you personally rallied them, it’s over it’s on you it’s over it’s over--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“We’re receiving reports that Resistance casualties are high--”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(While adversary casualties are total .)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“--and sadly include the son of Princess Leia Organa, herself deceased of natural causes in the hours before the operation. The Galaxy Beacon is investigating additional--”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Hux’s heart stuttered.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Ren was dead. (Of course he was.)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The Order was falling to pieces, crumbling behind Palpatine’s fleet. (What else could Hux have expected?)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(What else could he have done?)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Hux’s hands shook over the controls.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The escape craft was on autopilot, sinking steadily toward the spaceport in the distance, but the ground below still seemed to spin.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>### </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Hux had known what would happen. What </span>
  <em>
    <span>could </span>
  </em>
  <span>happen.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Six months ago, when he made the ugliest decision he ever had, and dual-encrypted the information that saved the galaxy and destroyed his life, he calculated all possible trajectories.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But no formula, no evaluation, no statistical assessment, could have prepared him for this particular eventuality.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The version of reality where he’s still alive, somehow, but works six to six at the plant like he’s just another refugee. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Where he’s chafing his hands over a radiator older than even the Empire, and it feels like the only sound in the parsec.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux picks at the split in his knuckles, the bead of blood where the dry skin has cracked. He seriously needs to get away from the radiator and the window. To </span>
  <em>
    <span>sleep</span>
  </em>
  <span>, because this is just irresponsible, at this point.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He turns from the window, but his feet only carry him for another circuit of the pod.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>It isn’t forever here.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He knows that. Has known it since the day he arrived. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He has a plan: save up, buy a ship and take up some kind of criminal lifestyle that at least keeps him moving.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But in the oh one hundred silence, with winter coming on, the plan--see the galaxy, if he can’t rule it--seems both far-off and empty.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Far-off, he’s never had a problem with, but </span>
  <em>
    <span>empty? </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>What are you going to do about it, then? You coward--</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux digs his nails into his palm, letting the sting clear his mind.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He can’t worry about this right now. He has to go shopping after work tomorrow, and the least he can do is go over his list. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Before he gets so worked up at being </span>
  <em>
    <span>out, </span>
  </em>
  <span>exposed to possible recognition, that he forgets half of what he came into the store for. (As always.) It's some Ren-level shit, getting so lost in his head he can't function.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>(Isn’t this, too?)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It isn’t. Sleep has always been difficult for him; it isn’t just the dreams.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He redirects that thought, as well, before it can veer off into the irrelevant.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Hair dye. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Polystarch portions. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Ration bars. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Tea.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In large enough quantities that he won’t have to go out again for another several weeks.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s all he needs. He lived on effectively the same in the Order (at least for the last six months, when </span>
  <em>
    <span>‘real food’ </span>
  </em>
  <span>over meetings with Ren ceased to be a thing that occurred).</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Ren is gone, and so is the need to sociably eat expensive, non-instant food, when he could save the credits for the ship and the pass off of this fucking rock.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>At maximum thriftiness, he could possibly clear Bonadan in another two years. It certainly won’t be more than three. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He won’t be able to </span>
  <em>
    <span>take </span>
  </em>
  <span>more than three.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(Even six months is pushing it.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>###</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Out Hux’s hotel room window, the lights of Nar Shaddaa burned yellow and orange in the mirk. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Somewhere above the polluted atmosphere, day was drawing on--the chrono on the night table read 0430 local--but the city wouldn’t see much of it.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Not that it mattered.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>It wasn’t as if Hux could go out. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>But it also wasn’t as if he would ever have anywhere else to be again, except a cell, an execution chamber, or the center of a mob seeking justice for war crimes.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>His wounds still throbbed dully--improved by symoxin and fresh bacta patches from the escape pod’s medpac--but it wasn’t as if he could just </span>
  </em>
  <span>lie down to rest.  </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He’d slept en route, and while a part of him wanted to curl up under the ratty blanket on the room’s single bed and sleep for the next fifty years, he knew rest would elude him.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Instead, he paced the length of the hotel room--limped, really, on an unsteady leg. He looped around dark stains on the carpet that he hoped weren’t blood. His breath came harsh, and it didn’t matter if it was the exertion or the chest wound or the strangling tendrils of panic wrapping around his ribs, all on their own. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He couldn’t sit still, so he was pacing, passing his cocked pistol from hand to hand.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The metal was void-cold to his touch, heavier than it had felt since the throne room on the Supremacy, with Snoke in pieces and Ren</span>
  </em>
  <span> vulnerable. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And even then you were too slow too hesitant too weak --</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He had meant to do it.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He had.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But you didn’t, you couldn’t, you let it go too far, too long, and see where it’s landed the Order, see where it’s landed you--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He ran a finger up and down the ribbed interior of the pistol’s grip. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>In the alley out the window, a storey below, voices shouted in what sounded like Huttese, then blaster bolts whistled through the air.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Pick the right moment, during the right gang fight, and no one would even hear the shot that ended him.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Pain throbbed dully through Hux’s leg as he crossed the small room again. He needed to keep weight off of it, if he wanted any chance for it to heal at a normal rate.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>If he were back on the Steadfast, he would have still been in medbay right now. Or he would have been if the Steadfast weren’t charred debris raining to Exegol’s surface with the rest of the Emperor’s fleet. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>(It had all been the Emperor’s, all along.)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>There was no blow like knowing your life’s work had been </span>
  </em>
  <span>designed </span>
  <em>
    <span>to be supplanted, that Sloane and the Commandant, that Snoke himself, had been mere pawns.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>That Ren had, too, and Hux had accepted it all too late.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p><em><span>(If he’d only believed Ren sooner; dismissed, mocked, cajoled him less, over the past year--over the past </span></em><span>seven</span> <em><span>years--)</span></em></p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>But he didn’t.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Hux didn’t, and now Ren was dead. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>There was no way to know whether the return of ‘Ben Solo’ was mere Resistance propaganda, or some sign that in the end, Ren too had realized the Order was a scuttled ship, taking on vacuum and plummeting like a meteor to the surface of the nearest world, burning and unstoppable.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>But it didn’t matter about Ren.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>It had never mattered about Ren because Ren had been a lost cause, an incurable head case, from the moment they met.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>(It had only taken seven years and the dissolution of the Order for that to sink in.)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The Order was </span>
  </em>
  <span>done</span>
  <em>
    <span>.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Hux had shouted as much at him only twenty-four hours ago (and Ren, the idiot, had still trusted him too much to suspect), but in some ways, it already felt like a different lifetime. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Like the mold-ridden walls of this hotel room were the only shelter Hux had ever known. Like Starkiller and the war and Ren were scenarios in some holosim he’d watched ages ago, picking at the loops of the stained carpet and wishing for an </span>
  </em>
  <span>out-of-here</span>
  <em>
    <span>.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>But his blaster wounds were too fresh to imagine he’d never been anyone else but the vagrant in the hotel room, with the loaded blaster, nowhere left to go, and no reason to go there.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>You did this, you did this, you have done this to yourself--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He hadn’t had a choice.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He knew that.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>But it hadn’t been supposed to go this way.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Hux was supposed to escape the wreck of the Steadfast, yes, but not like this. Not as a traitor, running for his life, with his ships already being picked off like carrion.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Fuck,” he breathed into the quiet of the room, the low hum of a window cooling unit. “ Fuck.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He stopped moving, traced his thumb up the blaster’s grip, and started to lift the gun.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Stopped.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Lowered it to his side again.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Kept pacing toward the bed.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>You fucking coward, you had the nerve to betray the Order but not to accept that it didn’t work, you failed you have nothing you--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>His eyes stung. The black streaks on the wall blurred to gray against the peeling paint. He swallowed back the emotion like a crystal in the back of his throat. He tightened his grip on the blaster.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He had to do this.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>You save yourself, you put forth all that effort, only to die here--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He knew when he was beaten. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Best to take it like a fucking soldier.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>His right hand twitched upward again, but he checked the motion in time.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The blaster’s muzzle pointed downward. If his finger pushed even slightly against the trigger, the shot would blacken the carpet, sear through the thin plaster ceiling, and land in whatever collateral damage was trying to sleep at 0430 local.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He didn’t take his finger out of the trigger well, but he pointed the gun toward the window, more or less a safe direction.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>His skin looked pink, the veins in the back of his hands blue-green, against the stainless white of the grip. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He’d had this same fucking gun customized four years ago: scope mount, replaceable barrel, automatic fire release. Combat specs.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He’d been going to win a war, not off himself in a hotel room in disgrace.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>(Like he was Ren or something, and had finally been torn so far apart he snapped.)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>His hands weren’t shaking, but his palm had started to sweat against the plasteel. His knuckles ached, yellowed, locked in place. He was clutching the gun too tightly, but he couldn’t loosen his grasp.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Go on and do it, what the hell are you waiting for--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Every second wasted was another that he might be found. Recognized.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>If not by the Resistance or the Republic, by someone whose significant-whatever died on Hosnian Prime, by some remnant of the Order that wanted to legitimize itself by ending a traitor. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>That wouldn’t understand that this was for the Order. It simply failed.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Who are you fooling, the Order died the day Ren started basing policy off the voices in his--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>It didn’t matter anymore: the when, the why, the how and whom.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The Order was over.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Hux swallowed back emotion and pressed the blaster’s muzzle under his chin. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The durasteel was as cold as an open air lock against the soft skin. It was fine. He wouldn’t have to feel it long.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>His hand was steady, trigger tremors long conditioned out. He squeezed his eyes shut, worked his finger toward the trigger well.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He moved his finger to the plasteel trigger. He knew how this would go. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He would pull it, and a plasma charge would sear through skin, tongue, palate, skull. It would burn for an instant: third-degree, like lightning. The shock of it would deform his face. The gray matter would absorb the entire charge.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>And then, nothing.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>His mind should have stopped the projection there--nothing beyond mattered--but the inevitable aftermath unfolded like a sim. The mess on the wall behind him. The cleaning droid or housekeeper entering the locked room in the morning. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Finding...</span>
  </em>
  <span> that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Scrubbing the wall for a biometric sample. For official identification of the corpse.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>(They might recognize him at the first, despite the unmarked clothes, if his face wasn’t too fucked up.)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Regardless, the whole galaxy would know within hours.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>(Know that he’d succumbed to the ultimate weakness.)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Ben Solo died a Resistance hero. In other news, First Order fugitive Armitage Hux has been found dead on Nar Shaddaa of a self-inflicted blaster wound.  That’s right, folks, this traitorous war criminal blew his own fucking brains out.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(Pathetic, isn’t it?)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>It didn’t matter.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Pull this trigger, right now, and he would know nothing.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Be </span>
  <em>
    <span>nothing.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>(Nothing, that was, except a salacious footnote in every history book for the next century: the man who took ten billion lives, betrayed his organization when it spun out of his control, then ran like a coward and shot himself in the head.)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Everyone in the galaxy would see right through him, or imagine they did. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Being seen through is something he has never allowed.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Just do it, you’ll be dead, it won’t matter what they think, why are you afraid of--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Hux bit his lip. His finger slipped out of the trigger well, though the blaster’s muzzle stayed against his skin, pressed tight enough to restrict his breathing. He inhaled deeply to compensate. Opened his eyes. His knuckles on the grip were as white as the plasteel.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p><em><span>His heartbeat thudded in his ears.</span></em> <span>One-two, one-two.</span><em><span> Deafening.</span></em></p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He </span>
  </em>
  <span>couldn’t</span>
  <em>
    <span>.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He crumpled to his knees on the carpet, jarring both blaster wounds.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>His chest heaved, and emotion wrapped hot between his ribs, snagged in his throat.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>You can’t.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>His fingers uncurled from the blaster grip. It thumped onto the floor, next to his knee, and he let it lie.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not here, </span>
  <em>
    <span>he decided.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Not now.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>###</span>
</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>Somehow, Hux postponed it all the way to Bonadan, slowly piecing together the plan.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>See the galaxy.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(He can hear Ren laughing through space and time: </span>
  <em>
    <span>Really? You only ever cared about one thing. </span>
  </em>
  <span>That </span>
  <em>
    <span>wasn’t it.)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux has stopped by the radiator again. He thins his lips, brushes an experimental finger over the hot metal of the valves. His breath fogs a circle of steam on the window pane.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He taps out his shopping list in the palm of his hand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Hair dye. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Rice. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Polystarch. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Tea, black if they have it. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Ration bars, whatever’s on sale.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When he came back into the bedroom a moment ago, the chrono read </span>
  <em>
    <span>1:25.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The alarm will ring in four hours, but the night isn’t a lost cause yet. He could just </span>
  <em>
    <span>try </span>
  </em>
  <span>and get back to sleep. Try.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>At least sit down and read something, anything, on his datapad. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It isn’t connected to anything but a basic local comms network right now, but he’s reasonably sure there are a couple of novels left downloaded from his last HoloNet uplink.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Pacing and remembering never solved any problem, and they won’t start to now, past oh one-hundred in company housing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He stiffens his spine with practiced discipline, puts his back to the radiator and the window. The cold stings his face and arms again, almost sharper for having been warm for so long. He chafes at his sleeves and crosses to the bedside.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Reading will be better than this. More productive.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He opens the night table drawer to extract his datapad, a thick, unwieldy thing bought third- or fourth-hand after his arrival on Bonadan. He makes to sit down with it on the edge of the bed, when a noise from the living room shatters the pod’s quiet.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s a </span>
  <em>
    <span>thud.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A knock.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>On the thin duraluminum of the front door.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux’s pulse picks up. Fight-or-flight charges through his bloodstream, against all reason.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No one in the galaxy is looking for him, not the Republic. Not any random citizen who’d want justice on their own terms.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Armitage Hux is presumed dead to the galaxy.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He breathes in. Out.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The knock resounds a second time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s almost certainly a drunk who’s come to the wrong pod. They </span>
  <em>
    <span>are </span>
  </em>
  <span>all identical. In his first weeks here he wound up in the wrong block after a single bad turn here or there more times than he can count, and he was perfectly sober.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ignore them and they’ll go away, or at least pass out on his slab of porch and crawl off stiff before he goes out tomorrow morning.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s nothing. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux fixes his gaze on the datapad, presses his thumb to the bioreader. He ought to sit down already.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Another three taps ring out, short and all but succinct. No slurred shouts of </span>
  <em>
    <span>lemme in. </span>
  </em>
  <span>The raps themselves are anything but sloppy.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Damnit.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>(It doesn’t matter, let them break in, let them </span>
  </em>
  <span>end </span>
  <em>
    <span>this--)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Instead, Hux grabs the other item in the still-open drawer: a BlasTech DL-18 pistol, late Imperial model. (Unlike the SE-44C he swapped it for six months ago, the DL-18 has yet to come anywhere near his head.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The pistol is loaded and charged. Hux cocks it as soon as the next knock comes, the click faint in the knock’s reverb.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He leaves the bedroom light on and slips back into the square of hallway he’s been looping through for the past two hours, then into the gray living room, blaster at his side.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His combat instincts, every muscle in his body, stands on edge. He’s halfway to the door.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>You survive hell on </span>
  </em>
  <span>Steadfast </span>
  <em>
    <span>and Nar Shaddaa, and now you’re panicking about--</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The knock rings again, bone-jarring in the short snatch of silence.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux flinches, but doesn’t stop moving until the sequence of taps has stopped. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Until he’s flush against the door with his finger on the trigger, but hasn’t yet looked out.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Until the voice he’d know at the heat death of the universe comes low from the other side:</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Before Hux can shout </span>
  <em>
    <span>fuck off</span>
  </em>
  <span>, before he can shoot through the door, before he can so much as think, his hand has slipped to the door’s control pad. The duraluminum slides right with a frigid burst of night air.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>On the other side, under Hux’s fizzling porchlight, stands a ghost.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Absent his voice, Hux might have passed him by in the street. His hair, still long and unruly, is less kempt than Hux has ever seen it--oily and tangled, now nearly brushing his shoulders, as if it had been hacked shorter at some point and grown back out.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Under a patchy layer of stubble, the bones jut out of his face. His frame, even under baggy layers, is skeletal, emaciated. Thinner even than after the harshest of Snoke’s training. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A battered black jacket sits loose on his shoulders. The right sleeve hangs empty below the wrist.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This cannot be.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>You’ve finally gone as mad as he was, you need to shut the door right </span>
  </em>
  <span>now--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>(You know damn well it’s all over.)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux blinks. Meets the specter’s eyes again, and protests all of this.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re dead.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>You’re supposed to be.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Kylo Ren doesn’t quite smile. “You too.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Content Warnings: non-graphic references to Hux's canonical abuse by his father | non-graphic description of removing an IV needle | In a memory, Hux contemplates suicide, to the point of raising a blaster to his head. He stops himself upon picturing the aftermath. He re-considers that choice in a passing thought in the present, but the ideation doesn't and (spoiler) won't recur.</p>
<p>The story title is lovingly borrowed from Twenty One Pilots.</p>
<p>This fic is a bit over halfway drafted (20 chapters and counting, buckle in), and updates will be on Fridays.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Door</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Ahh, I said Friday updates, and then my week went insane! Here I am, only a day late :)</p><p>As usual, chapter-specific content warnings are in the end notes--nothing so heavy as last chapter, though!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>(sixteen months ago)</strong>
</p><p>“We need to talk about the underworld,” Hux says, for the third time in as many Coruscanti rotations. </p><p>Across the makeshift war room, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren ignores him, as usual. </p><p>Ren’s been pacing the chamber’s length for the past ten minutes, cloak enveloping him despite the sweltering heat. Hux has no idea how he’s standing it--Hux himself has stripped to shirtsleeves and dogtags. </p><p>A series of thermal detonator blasts knocked the former Imperial Palace off the city’s power grid two rotations ago, but a defunct observatory halfway up its central spire remains the safest spot in the district for the ground base that Ren ‘needs’ Hux to personally man. </p><p>If Ren wanted to suffocate him, he could have at least done it himself two months ago, rather than leave it to the Federal District’s summer.</p><p>The sole source of ventilation up here is a blaster-bolt hole high in the spire’s south-facing window. The hot night air effuses through it, heavy with the acrid stench of supercharged plasma and charred architectural supports. These are no conditions in which to run a planetary invasion, particularly not when a fully operational (and therefore temperature-regulated) Star Destroyer hangs exactly ten kilometers overhead.</p><p>But Ren, of course, won’t hear of ten kilometers’ separation from his second-in-command.</p><p>Hux combs back the wisps of hair clinging to his sweat-sticky forehead, and repeats the request to discuss starting operations in the chaotic levels of city below Coruscant’s surface. “Sir,” he adds, as flatly as he can.</p><p>Ren turns as if summoned, dark frame blocking the light from the window behind him. </p><p>“Did you have them run the sublevel scan again?” he asks, apropos of nothing Hux has said since Ren arrived up here.</p><p>“Yes, sir.” Hux lifts his datapad from the commandeered desk he’s been working from; Ren’s about to require proof. “No results deeper than three levels below the palace, as before.”</p><p>Ren bites his lip, takes a step toward Hux. “That can’t be.”</p><p>“Well, it is,” Hux replies, passing him the datapad like it’s a winning sabacc hand: <em> Read it and weep. </em></p><p>For a horrible moment, as Ren skims the report, it looks like he might. His jaw tightens, throat works, and in six years as colleagues, it will be far from the first time Hux has had to deal with it.</p><p>But the tremor passes, and Ren hands the datapad back to Hux with a steady, gloved hand. “This isn’t right,” he says, more to the window than to Hux. “I saw there was something down there.”</p><p>Ren sees a lot of things, anymore: maps in scavengers’ heads, Jedi who are on neither the <em> Supremacy </em>nor Crait, opportunities to do away with his abusive Master.</p><p>But the metaphysical impetus to invade Coruscant has been something different from the start--something, if possible, even <em> less </em> concrete.</p><p>After two months of fragile cooperation, they’d been staying in adjoining suites for surrender negotiations on Savareen, scheduled to continue the next morning. Before 0300, Hux had awoken to the sound of breaking glass in the ‘fresher connecting their rooms.</p><p>Ren was holding the remains of a drinking glass, blood trailing down his left wrist. He announced they were re-routing to Coruscant, on the basis of a dream he refused to describe. To Hux’s protests--no planning, little intel--he’d replied, “<em>I thought you wanted the rest of the Core.” </em> It wasn’t as if Hux couldn’t keep arguing.</p><p>In the chaotic cycles since, Hux has gleaned a few more scattered details about the nightmare: namely, that it persuaded Ren that the Imperial Palace is sitting on an artifact he’s “meant” to find.</p><p>In an underground shrine that apparently does not exist.</p><p>“Perhaps if this...<em> chamber </em> is subterranean,” Hux tries, skimming the scan results once more himself, “developing a plan of battle for the underworld may-- Wait.” He stops himself short, reviewing the scan’s metadata.</p><p>“What?” Ren asks, circling to look at the screen over his shoulder.</p><p>“Damnit.” Hux rubs his temple with his free hand. “The team simply queried the database again. The Palace’s layout is auto-matching to the official Imperial schematics--”</p><p>“Instead of actually probing,” Ren supplies. He pops his lips. “Of course.”</p><p>“I’ll have them run it again, sir.” Hux jabs at the screen, pulling up a new request. “Properly.”</p><p>Ren’s fist curls and uncurls at his side in Hux’s periphery, that anxious tic. “Thank you.”</p><p>Hux expects him to start pacing again, but he stays beside Hux instead. He unballs his fingers to grip the edge of the desk, eyelids sinking momentarily shut.</p><p>Even by the light pollution and battle glow that illuminate the room, Ren’s too pale. The datapad, though, renders him all but spectral. The fading pink ridge of his scar stands out almost red again. Not only is he dressed for winter, he isn’t even sweating. Hux hasn’t seen him eat since their working dinner two rest cycles ago, somewhere in the middle of hyperspace.</p><p>If he’s ever fit to lead a transgalactic military force (especially <em> Hux’s </em>transgalactic military force), it isn’t now.</p><p>“Supreme Leader,” Hux says, low, “while we await the scan results, perhaps you’d--”</p><p>Ren interrupts him with a sigh that’s more exhausted than aggravated. “I keep telling you. I’m not ready to move on the underworld yet.” He tips his head toward the window as a rocket flares nearby. “We have enough to worry about topside.”</p><p>You<em> have your imaginary shrines and trinkets to worry about</em>, Hux bites back.</p><p>This conversation had not been what Hux was going to suggest.</p><p>“It’s never too early to start planning, sir,” he answers, instead, so demure it’s sarcastic even in his own ears. “But perhaps it could wait until next rotation while you...recharge.”</p><p><em> On the ship </em> , goes unspoken. (Of course, Rn will almost certainly drag Hux back up with him into the <em> Finalizer </em>’s relative comforts--the separation paranoia has its advantages.)</p><p>But Ren shakes his head, lifting his hand from the desk. “I slept this afternoon,” he says, “for a bit at least.” He levels his gaze at Hux, eyes all pupil in this lighting. “You didn’t,” he observes.</p><p>“You know I can’t,” Hux retorts. His insomnia always goes into overdrive during active ground assaults. His mind will race for hours in the dark, he’ll check his datapad at intervals, and he will have been better off to just keep working. “And it’s too hot to sleep, anyway,” he adds, with a nod at Ren’s cloak. “If you haven’t noticed.”</p><p>“I haven’t,” Ren says, drily, but with a pained tug at the corner of his mouth.</p><p>“You’re aware that could actually mean you’re <em> over</em>heated.”</p><p>Ren chafes his arms. “You know how the Dark is. For me,” he amends, as if to keep Hux from protesting. “This is the most powerful thing I’ve felt since Starkiller--” He pauses, with a lingering glance at Hux. “--fired. It means something.”</p><p>It <em> means </em>that Ren’s wasted the thirty-six hours since they took the Palace wandering it from spire to cellar like a musk-hound that’s lost its scent.</p><p>But Hux knows better than to press when he’s like this: when he’s underfed and sleep-deprived and lost in his own head. </p><p>Hux thins his lips. “As you say, Supreme Leader.”</p><p>Of course, Ren catches the sarcasm. His gaze sparks, more present than it’s been in a cycle and a half.</p><p>“You don’t understand,” he says, earnest where he’s sometimes dismissive. As if Hux isn’t the only one he’s trying to persuade. “The thing I saw. When I find it, the information it contains will change everything.”</p><p>Hux raises his eyebrows. “So it will contain the location of the new Resistance headquarters?”</p><p>“<em>No </em>--” Ren starts, heat building, volcanic, under his tone.</p><p>“--because that’s the sort of information this military needs,” Hux finishes, despite him.</p><p>“This holocron might contain the teachings that would show <em>me</em> how to locate the base.” Ren’s fingers work at his side. “Destroy it from a distance, force a surrender… It’s worth it.”</p><p>It squarely isn’t.</p><p>Not when Ren’s existing abilities can win the Order any battle he actually chooses to focus on.</p><p>Not when the mere <em> rumor </em>of a red lightsaber, of soldiers flung aside, of buildings torn brick from brick, is a psychological weapon on the scale of Starkiller itself.</p><p>But what is Hux supposed to do, flatter him?</p><p>“I understood you’d be in combat, sir,” Hux says, flatly.</p><p>“I will be in combat,” Ren retorts, eyes flashing “as soon as--”</p><p>He stops abruptly, turning toward the window as if he heard his name called. </p><p>“What--” Hux starts, following his gaze.</p><p>A second later, a missile flares in the darkness outside, streaks into a cloudscraper on the edge of what’s still known as the Palace Precinct. The orange glow of the explosion warms Ren’s pallor. A glance down shows the same illusion on Hux’s bare arms. At a kilometer’s distance, the impact is more vibration than sound. It rattles the spire’s windows, thrums between Hux’s ears like a sonic boom. </p><p>“Fuck,” Ren mutters, whirling back toward Hux. “I thought we held this side of the city.”</p><p>He would know if he hadn’t spent the past rotation in the Imperial palace, sniffing for fabrications of his subconscious.</p><p>“We do hold it, Supreme Leader,” Hux replies, instead. “But there have been a few isolated surface-to-air--”</p><p>The sudden klaxon of the comlink on the desk interrupts him. </p><p>Hux grabs the disk in a single flurried motion. The blue caller information above shows a transmission from trooper DL-3381, commander of the 709th. Hux’s conditioning demands a glance at Ren--<em> permission, sir? </em>--to answer.</p><p>Ren dips his head toward the comlink, and he raises his eyebrows--more <em> go ahead, then </em> than <em> granted, soldier.  </em></p><p>Hux pushes-to-talk, and DL-3381’s smudged armor resolves above the com. She’s visible from the waist up, the image no taller than Hux’s hand.</p><p>“Commander,” Hux greets her, before Ren can possibly jump in. “Report.”</p><p>“Sirs.” The trooper nods to each of them in turn. “We’ve captured a terrorist who infiltrated the Precinct perimeter--wearing an explosive vest. We’ve disarmed the incendiary device, but assumed the perp may be wanted for interrogation?”</p><p>“Of course. Very good, Commander,” Hux replies automatically, but thins his lips. </p><p>If the rebels--or at least one of their factions--are resorting to suicide tactics, it means that they doubt their capacity for victory by traditional means. A definite positive. </p><p>But it also means they’ve lost the last of their scruples. If the days following Starkiller proved nothing else, it’s that their desperation is dangerous.</p><p>“Has initial questioning indicated the operative’s affiliation?” he asks.</p><p>“Not central Resistance,” Ren all but murmurs, before DL-3381 can respond. “Not their style.”</p><p>
  <em> Not their fucking style? </em>
</p><p>Hux slams the coms mute button. “The casualties of <em> Fulminatrix </em> and <em> Supremacy </em>might beg to differ.”</p><p>Ren shakes his head. “Those were isolated occurrences,” he drawls. “This must be a local extremist.”</p><p>“Whom they’re most likely arming and funding.”</p><p>Ren doesn’t argue, just glances toward the battle glow out the window, then back to DL-3381. “We’re about to find out.” He flicks his wrist, and the mute button under Hux’s thumb sinks again as if of its own accord. </p><p>“Commander,” he says to the trooper, “have the prisoner sent to the Palace base. I’ll handle the interrogation personally.”</p><p>DL-3381 dips her head. “Yes, Supreme Leader. Right away. 3381 out.”</p><p>The trooper’s dissolves in a blue-white flash, and Hux replaces the com on the desk, in something near disbelief. For the first time in two rotations, Ren’s volunteered to do something besides haunt the Palace like a Jedi ghost. </p><p>It’s more than Hux had begun to hope for, this mission. He can’t stop him, and won’t try.</p><p>Even exhausted, starved, and Force-perturbed, Ren remains the best interrogator the Order has. </p><p>(And it’ll do him good to remember there’s a war outside his own skull.)</p><p>“The transfer won’t take long,” Ren seems to announce, but adds with an expectant tilt of his chin, “I’m heading down.” <em> So follow me like a shadow. </em></p><p>Hux purses his lips against an exasperated sigh. “Supreme Leader, I have work to do up here.”</p><p>“Such as?” Ren’s fingers curl and uncurl at his side.</p><p>“Checking in on the Mid Rim campaign,” Hux replies. “Reviewing sitreps here.” It comes out like a challenge, but he lightens his tone. He knows what this is about. “What could I do to you from four levels away?”</p><p>Ren gives him a look like he’s trying to bore through his skull, but then his lip twitches upward. He takes one of Hux’s ID tags between thumb and forefinger, then drops it back against his sternum. </p><p>“I have a feeling I’d be surprised.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>What would <em> surprise </em>Ren--given his programmed-torpedo focus on the palace and this damn relic--is how fucking complicated it is to wage war on an ecumenopolis.</p><p>Hux’s datapad flashes with a fresh slew of notifications: mid-shift reports from across Coruscant’s districts. </p><p><em> 0301 </em> stripes the tablet’s lock screen chrono as the alerts stack up. He runs both hands through his lank hair and sinks into the desk’s chair, elbows framing the datapad.</p><p>Ten reports. Twelve.</p><p>So much for the Mid Rim.</p><p>The fighting remains thickest here in the former Federal District, but insurgent cells have sprung up rapidly across the planet in the four rotations since the planet’s Alderman--formerly headquartered here in the Palace--refused to surrender. </p><p>The Order subsequently blew the palace to the furthest limit of habitability, but the objective is to keep the rest of the planet from going the same way. </p><p>It’s succeeded in a few remoter districts--full topside surrender, and modified Order occupation procedures. </p><p>But routing every rebel is impossible. In an infinite city, a new hole will always open up for them to scurry to. </p><p>And that’s only considering the topside.</p><p>Ren didn’t want to plan for the more conventional surface invasion--fine, it’s been manageable--but he needs to accept that unique (and hitherto ungoverned) terrain like the underworld will require some level of forethought.</p><p>His refusal to acknowledge that has been, well. </p><p>Disappointing, honestly.</p><p>For the past month or so--after a brief adjustment period--Ren’s actually been a more mission-oriented superior than Snoke ever was. He’s scored systems’ worth of surrenders, actually attended negotiations, delegated appropriately to Hux <em> and </em>listened to him.</p><p>None of it could ever make up for Crait, but Hux had started to hope that something could be made of <em> Ren.  </em></p><p>But then: Savareen, and the old distractions.</p><p><em> If he could just fucking </em> focus <em> again-- </em></p><p>The whine of a closer missile shatters Hux’s thoughts. </p><p>The orange flare exposes the war room for the stripped-out office it is: blackened paneling, ashy floors, shot wiring protruding from the corners of the ceiling. Dismal.</p><p>For a moment.</p><p>The flash winks out. The shadows reform.</p><p>Hux rubs his temples, red floaters dancing before his eyes in the darkness.</p><p>He should be on the <em> Finalizer </em> right now. </p><p>He should be on the <em> Finalizer </em> , and he should be making plans for the underworld, should already <em> have </em> a plan for the topside, should be overseeing its execution, should be in command- <em> - </em></p><p>
  <em> Stop. </em>
</p><p>He isn’t. In command.</p><p><em> (because you hesitated, you had him, you could have shot him ended him ended this won this, you </em> coward <em> --) </em></p><p><em> No</em>.</p><p>Hux cuts off the thought with three decades of practice, blocks it away like a collapsed mineshaft: Here lies only freefall.</p><p>He presses his thumb to his datapad’s bioreader, opens his inbox, and gets to work.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>An hour later, two sharp knocks at the doorframe pull his focus from a munitions request.</p><p>The office door itself was blown to fragments in the initial assault, but the crew still know better than to barge in. Unamo stands at the open entrance, datapad in hand.</p><p>“Enter,” Hux orders, with a vague nod. </p><p>She does, and comes to parade rest across the desk from him. Her regulation bun remains more or less in place, though a few flyaways cling to her sweaty forehead. She’s in full uniform, of course.</p><p>Hux should have put on his outer jacket first; there’s a part of him that feels exposed, even in front of a subordinate--all freckled arms and collarbones--but it’s too late, at this point. He laces his fingers on the desktop to salvage some facade of poise.</p><p>“Yes, Commander?” he asks.</p><p>“General,” she replies, with a brief, deferential dip of the chin, “the Supreme Leader wishes to confer with you downstairs.”</p><p>Of course he does.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>With the lifts out, it’s six flights of emergency stairs down to the makeshift detention center on the spire’s tenth level--more suffocating than actually physically taxing.</p><p>But Hux still sucks in a too-deep gasp of ozone-heavy air as he approaches the office Ren’s working in.</p><p>Two troopers stand sentinel at the darkened doorway and immediately salute, making more than enough way.</p><p>Inside the low-ceilinged room, a shaft of city light stabs through a massive but grimy window. A battered Weequay sits bound to a chair directly in its beam. Their reptilian eyes are glassier than typical, and their chest is still smoking.</p><p>At least it looks like a clean kill.</p><p>“Well?” Hux says, to the mass of shadow to the right of the chair.</p><p>Ren steps forward into the light, looking slightly more mortal than an hour ago. He’s broken a sweat, finally, and his cloak must be somewhere in the dark corners of the room. His gloves are still on, but he’s pushed up the sleeves of his tunic.</p><p>But it’s his eyes that are most telling: present, alert, darting almost smugly between Hux and the corpse. His lightsaber is back on his belt.</p><p>“What did you get?” Hux asks, in the beat before Ren can start.</p><p>“He wasn’t central Resistance,” Ren says, with a pleased note that still isn’t quite <em> I-told-you-so </em>, “and wasn’t aware of any such ties within his group.”</p><p>Hux ignores any reference to his initial speculation. “And which group is that?”</p><p>Ren recites a few syllables in what Hux can only assume is the xeno’s native Sriluurian. </p><p>Hux lifts his eyebrows expectantly.</p><p>Ren complies with the tacit request for translation. “‘Spiral Ten?’” he says. “I gathered it’s some kind of street gang or criminal cult that got into combat once the invasion started.”</p><p>“And now they’re sending suicide bombers.” </p><p>Hux takes a step toward the body. The bony protrusions along the xeno’s jowls are just a few centimeters long--they’re barely past their majority. </p><p>“Yeah,” Ren agrees, with a sort of scoff, “rough business pivot.” He spares the corpse another glance, then seems to sober, changing the topic. “They came up from the underworld.”</p><p>There it is: the concession. But it’s too important to gloat over.</p><p>“How?” Hux returns instead. “They aren’t sheltering there, as I-- as <em> we </em>were concerned about?”</p><p>“I didn’t get all of the details.” </p><p>Ren throws a glance toward the doorframe and the troopers standing guard just within earshot. He tips his head in that direction, a clear beckon toward better privacy.</p><p>Hux can’t argue that. He follows Ren out, putting the light and the corpse behind him.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>“With the right show of force,” Hux estimates, at least an hour later, “I imagine most cells will back down within a few weeks.”</p><p>Since leaving the tenth-level detention area, he and Ren have walked and talked. Or, well, Hux has talked. </p><p>Between Ren’s full attention and his intel on underground insurgent movements, he’s actually been useful. He’s let Hux spell out a number of artillery and infantry options for the subterranean campaign, contributing here and there with a sharp question or tactical observation.</p><p>As they’ve cut their way further down into the palace--out of the spire and into the blocky quincrux--his comments have grown sparser, his voice flatter, his gaze more distant. </p><p>On higher floors, Ren looked just as pallid by the light through shattered windows. Here on the shuttered ground level, sconced red lamps lining the walls--apparently some sort of non-electric backup system--tint his skin with a counterfeit flush.</p><p>“Weeks?” he echoes, with more inflection than he’s had in at least two storeys. He cuts his eyes at Hux. “We need to show enough force that we--that you and I--” he clarifies “--can leave as soon as we can.”</p><p>Hux swallows a sigh. </p><p>Ren’s made it abundantly clear he has only one interest on Coruscant. He’s certain he’ll find this relic when the scans come back, and then he’ll be ready to leave. He’s impatient for it already.</p><p>But the trouble is, he’ll find nothing, because his nightmares indicate nothing more than that his brain is fucked up.</p><p>He won’t see that, however, not until he’s twice as broken-down as he is now, and it’s taken twice the amount of time to subdue the insurgents without him. It’s the question Hux keeps returning to, the variable upon which the equation for victory here hangs--whether or not Hux can factor him in.</p><p>But of course, he refuses to give even a yes-or-no answer, much less a timetable.</p><p>Nevertheless, Hux has to try again. He inhales, measuring his verbiage. “The extent, Supreme Leader, of our show of force, depends on your-- level of participation.”</p><p>The shadows flicker across Ren’s face as he turns toward Hux. “Why would I not actively participate in an assault on the underworld?” </p><p>Perhaps it’s merely an effect of trying to keep his volume down, but his voice comes out taut, barely controlled.</p><p>Hux effortlessly matches his tone. “As you’ve suggested that you plan to leave Coruscant as soon as you’ve found your trinket, I have reason to wonder. <em> Sir </em>.”</p><p>“No,” Ren returns, “I said that we can’t leave before I find it. Not that we have to leave as soon as I do.”</p><p>Hux digs his nails into his palm.</p><p>Ren and his fucking semantics. </p><p>But there’s no way to tell the Supreme Leader of the galaxy that he sounds approximately ten years old.</p><p>(Not when you’re trying to get a commitment out of him.)</p><p>Hux thins his lips. “Very well,” he says, casual. “So if you’re in no hurry to find it and leave, you <em> are </em> willing to come join the fight again?”</p><p>Ren’s eyes glint in the ruddy light. “I’m in the fight, General.”</p><p>Hux can’t help himself.</p><p>He can’t.</p><p>“Of course, sir,” he answers, drily. “You interrogated and executed one prisoner.”</p><p>“I led the assault on this Precinct!” Ren’s volume spikes enough to reverb down the hall. “And it’s the only one we still have a firm hold on. Since then I’ve been investigating an intelligence lead.”</p><p>“By wandering around the same building you captured two rotations ago,” Hux scoffs. “Perhaps there’s a reason we’ve only fully captured one precinct.”</p><p>Ren looks ahead again. “Perhaps you could ask your soldiers about that,” he says, caustic as dry ice.</p><p>But it doesn’t sting like it’s supposed to.</p><p>“<em>My </em> soldiers, <em> Supreme Leader</em>?” Hux asks, drily.</p><p>The second person is a habit Ren has yet to break. It should be satisfying--that he still thinks of the army as Hux’s--but the fact only emerges when he needs someone to blame. </p><p>Ren just scoffs, shaking his head. Point taken, at least.</p><p>Hux drives it in. “My soldiers follow tactics that account for your presence on the battlefield.”</p><p>Ren’s quiet for the two steps it takes to turn off into a branching hallway. “You’re admitting they need me,” he replies, with a smug quirk at the corner of his mouth.</p><p>Hux easily keeps pace with him. “I am <em> acknowledging </em> that we factored you into our plan of attack.”</p><p>“I can’t help that it’s taking this long.” Defensiveness dials Ren’s pitch up, but he inhales. Masters it. “You need to work around this.”</p><p><em> Or </em> you <em> need to fucking prioritize. </em></p><p>Hux forces himself to stick to simple logistics. “So you’re trying to tell me you <em> won’t </em> be participating in the underworld assault, then?” (He can’t help that it still comes out a sneer.)</p><p>“I didn’t say that,” Ren says, with the low thrum of a fully charged thermal detonator.</p><p>“So you <em> would </em> like to be included in the plans?”</p><p>Ren doesn’t answer, instead makes another abrupt turn. This time, Hux all but skids to a stop to follow him, boots loudly scuffing the floor. He follows him close, but catches up in a few hurried steps. He gives Ren a few more paces to answer the question, but a glance to his side shows his mouth is a firm line, his gaze fixed straight ahead, as if on some point amid the shadows and the red patches between them.</p><p>He’s moving faster now, too, walking like he has a destination, rather than the aimless wandering of before.</p><p>A surge of annoyance prickles Hux’s skin. One moment, Ren’s going to insult him, the next he’s going to act like Hux isn’t even here.</p><p>“Supreme Leader?” Hux’s voice is infuriatingly small in the quiet of the corridor.</p><p>Nothing.</p><p>Damn him.</p><p>Never mind the exhaustion and possible overheating, this is unacceptable.</p><p>But Ren’s gaze is a lightyear away, and more importantly, this is <em> strange</em>.</p><p>Ren has always been distractible, taciturn, <em> rude, </em>but the spacing out--that vacant stare, the faraway expression, the silence that’s empty, not petulant--is something Hux has only seen following a handful of sessions with Snoke. (The ones that Hux only saw evidence of when briefing him in medbay--bruises, electrical burns, jutting bones.)</p><p>It should have stopped, now that Snoke is gone, but in the week since this dream, Hux has seen more of it than ever. And Ren’s obsessive certainty that his Darkness itself is sending him some kind of message—some last secret to a power Snoke would have taught him to unlock—makes it even more concerning.</p><p>Not that he shouldn’t be continuing to hone his abilities, but--</p><p>This single-minded, insomniac obsessiveness reeks of Snoke’s influence.</p><p>
  <em> Find the token, complete the test; train, meditate, fast until you’re dead on your feet--or you’ll be systematically tortured. </em>
</p><p>Hux watched it for years.</p><p>But no matter the lingering effects of it all, Ren’s sudden reversion to Snoke’s educational approach—after having personally eliminated him—is a flavor of fucked-up Hux can’t quite grasp. </p><p>Snoke’s dead.</p><p>Ren lives.</p><p>(Ren <em> won</em>, and the loser should be irrelevant.)</p><p>Ren <em> won</em>, moreover, and therefore has duties to people besides whatever specters he imagines over his head.</p><p>That it falls on Hux to remind him of them--lest his skewed priorities compromise this invasion --is simply a cruel twist of the knife.</p><p>“Supreme Leader,” Hux repeats, low but commanding.  </p><p>Ren stops walking, but keeps looking directly ahead. Ice crawls up Hux’s spine.</p><p>“<em>Ren</em>,” he hisses, on impulse.</p><p>Ren blinks, turns toward him all but blearily. “What?” he murmurs. “Fuck. Hux.”</p><p>“Do I have your attention?”</p><p>“Yeah.” Ren’s voice resolves into its normal timbre, and his gaze darts toward a corridor branching to the left. He turns abruptly. </p><p>“Shit,” he breathes. “The underworld.”</p><p>Hux buries his nails in his palms, following him, on his heel. <em> For fuck’s sake. </em></p><p>“Yes, sir,” he says, as unpatronizing as he can manage. “Will you be involved?”</p><p>“<em>Yes</em>,” Ren retorts, somehow frustrated by the question <em> he </em>refused to answer. </p><p>“Very good, then,” is what Hux says. “You’ll be an asset to both the airborne and--”</p><p>Ren interrupts as if he hadn’t been finished speaking: “Because I’m going to find what I was shown.”</p><p>Hux could scream. He could absolutely start fucking<em> screaming </em> at the cavernous ceiling. Ren cannot hinge his plans on things that may or may not be real. He can <em> not </em>.</p><p>(Crait proved that it only leads to catastrophe.)</p><p>“But if you don’t,” he prompts, as flatly as possible.</p><p>“I will,” Ren replies. “I have to.”</p><p>Hux ignores him. He has to. “We cannot plan around an <em> if </em>, Supreme Leader.”</p><p>“War is nothing <em> but </em>planning around ifs.”</p><p>It sounds like something he might have heard from his mother.</p><p>With Ren’s gaze trained on the darkness ahead, Hux rolls his eyes. “The adversary is supposed to be the unknown variable. One’s CO is not.”</p><p>Ren shoots him a glance. <em> Fuck </em>. Hand him the commanding officer card, and he is absolutely going to play it--</p><p>But he doesn’t, not exactly.</p><p>He turns to Hux, still moving. </p><p>“I’m looking into an intelligence lead that only I can investigate,” he says, with a cool arrogance that could have come out of the old vocoder. “It’s the only viable division of labor here.”</p><p>As Hux is about to reply, he takes another sharp right, into a hall with a lower ceiling. Though the temperature has been dropping steadily with each level of the palace, this corridor is finally <em> cold</em>.</p><p>Hux chafes his arms against gooseflesh. “Supreme Leader,” he says, then purses his lips, calculating. <em> Fuck it. </em>“Some leads are simply bad.”</p><p>Ren has been in this business more than long enough to know that. (Hells, he <em> chased Luke Skywalker </em>long enough to know that.)</p><p>“Not this one,” Ren says, and repeats, “Not this one.” The hand he drags through his hair is trembling.</p><p>
  <em> Shit. </em>
</p><p>“Do you need to sit down or something?” Hux demands.</p><p>Ren dismisses him with a scoff, then veers toward another offshooting passage, inward again. “Just keep telling me about your fucking underworld plan.”</p><p>“I’ve been telling you my options depend upon--” Hux starts, peevishly.</p><p>“Tell me your underworld options, then. Whatever.”</p><p>“Very well, sir.” Hux inclines his head, catching Ren’s impassive profile in his periphery. “I’ve already begun to describe--”</p><p>Hux follows Ren’s right turn, but stops dead, mid-step and mid-sentence. </p><p>The thing he least expected down here spills over the toes of his boots from the end of the new hallway: soft yellow light.</p><p>A beam of it jabs down the corridor, emitting from an open, arched entrance some fifteen meters ahead. The corridor is still lined with the red lamps, but they glimmer dim and ghostly compared to what must be lampdisk light at the other end of the hall.</p><p>Hux risks a glance at Ren, who’s stopped beside him. He’s <em> been </em> pale, so it’s impossible to determine whether he’s blanched further now, especially in the relative glare of the new light source. He says nothing, but his fingers work at his side, like the scrabbling legs of a beetle on its back.</p><p>Hux rubs his arms. It’s simply cold down here; there’s no chill under his skin. “You didn’t tell me part of the palace had a generator.”</p><p>“It--” Ren pauses, gaze flitting between the light down the hall and Hux’s face. “It wasn’t running when I searched down here before. Maybe it just kicks on at night.”</p><p>It has to be past 0500 hours by now, but Hux doesn’t remark on that. </p><p>“Then perhaps we should move our base of operations down here at night,” he suggests instead. “It’s cooler, properly lit…”</p><p>Ren gnaws his lip. His eyes dart again. “We should reconnoiter first.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>It’s a short stretch of hall. </p><p>As they approach the arch, the beam of light swells into a band, then floods the stone beneath their feet, even as the temperature seems to drop even more. There’s still no sign of ventilation--which direction the cooler air’s blowing out of.</p><p>The arch, upon closer examination, is ornately carved with vines and a small blossom that might be wisteria. It’s impossible to tell in the black stone.</p><p>“What is this?” Hux whispers to Ren, though he isn’t concerned about an echo. “You at least went in before.” <em> Even if it wasn’t lit up like a space station. </em></p><p>Ren matches Hux’s tone. “It looked like it used to be an indoor courtyard or terrarium, but the Alderman wasn’t using it.”</p><p>“All right.”</p><p>It would make sense for a terrarium to have a backup generator, if its plants required particular lighting or relied on an electrically-run watering system.</p><p>The arch is more than broad enough for them to enter the chamber side by side. Hux doesn’t break his stride, until Ren all but slams to a halt, just two paces inside. </p><p>The chamber looks more like a sacked treasury than a courtyard. It’s wide and low-ceilinged, with walls and floor of the same unrelenting black stone as the rest of the palace. The room’s other features look as if they had grown out of the rock itself. </p><p>Raised garden beds, perhaps a quarter meter high, line the perimeter of the room, glittering and empty. A few stationary pots--these higher-walled, likely meant for trees or shrubs--stand between low benches, shining and smoothly polished. </p><p>These encircle the only sign of life in the room: a burbling fountain of the same obsidian stone. Water pours over glistening black tiers stacked nearly as tall as Hux and Ren, draining into a lower basin ringed by a lush planter. Tendrils of ferns and ivy trail over the sides, segmented by clusters of a bright yellow flower Hux doesn’t recognize.</p><p>Hux is about to remark that the Alderman must have been using this place after all, when a stuttered breath from Ren’s direction demands his attention.</p><p>Ren’s undeniably paler. He stands carbonite-still.</p><p>“What?” Hux asks, slowly.</p><p>“The fountain.” Ren gnaws his lip, fingers working at his sides. His voice stays low, painfully controlled. “There was nothing in it before.”</p><p>Gooseflesh prickles Hux’s forearms again. Even under his sleeves, he can feel each hair standing up. It’s freezing down here.</p><p>“What do you mean?” Hux asks, rubbing his arms uselessly.</p><p>“I mean that yesterday the fountain was off, and there was nothing fucking growing in it,” Ren retorts, but the shrill note in his voice is obviously fear more than anger.</p><p>What the hell is he trying to say?</p><p>“You must have overlooked it, Supreme Leader,” Hux postulates, restraining an exasperated sigh, or worse, an eyeroll. “You’ve been focused...elsewhere.”</p><p>Ren shakes his head, and doesn’t take his eyes off the overflowing planter. It looks like several weeks’ worth of growth. The generator must provide only the bare minimum of climate control--they couldn’t have grown so well in the cold, under yellowish lampdisks.</p><p>“I specifically recall it,” Ren says, not argumentative or defensive--simply stating his perception of the facts. “I looked around the room, and had to assume it used to be some kind of courtyard, because there was nothing growing in it.”</p><p>“Clearly something was.” Hux thins his lips, straightens reflexively into parade rest. He’s more patient at attention. “This can’t have cropped up overnight.”</p><p>“I know that,” Ren says, an apprehensive edge to his tone. “It shouldn’t have, but…” He trails off, looking around the room again.  His gaze catches on a point above Hux’s shoulder. He stiffens as if startled.</p><p>“What?” Hux asks, but he’s already turning around.</p><p>“That,” Ren replies, flatly.</p><p>About two meters down the wall from the open archway, a similar but unadorned rectangular frame stretches from floor to ceiling. What can only be a door in the center rests a thumb’s width open. A thin line of darkness fills the gap.</p><p>“That wasn’t here, either,” Ren continues, in that same dead voice, before Hux can ask what’s so awful about his having apparently left it open.</p><p>“You really are exhausted,” Hux scoffs instead. </p><p>Ren doesn’t rise to it. “I wasn’t when I checked here,” he insists, stepping toward it. His fingers work at his side. “This is new. I would remember.”</p><p>He would.</p><p>Under normal circumstances.</p><p>Before Hux can point this out either, though, Ren’s centimeters from the stone door.</p><p>“Stay back,” he says, and flicks his wrist.</p><p>A ripple in the air brushes Hux’s skin a meter away, and the door slides fully open, crunching on a stone track. A fresh burst of cold--now almost frigid--air leaches into the room, along with the damp, earthy musk of a limestone cave. </p><p>A Ren-high rectangle of total darkness yawns in the center of the wall.</p><p>Hux steps forward slightly as the door grinds to, but keeps behind Ren as directed.</p><p>Ren, meanwhile, moves into the doorframe, setting one boot on the ledge of the threshold to peer into the black.</p><p>“Well?” Hux prompts, after a moment.</p><p>Ren shakes his head, and says nothing. His hand goes to his lightsaber; Hux flinches back on needless instinct as he draws and ignites it.</p><p>The saber crackles to life. Its thunderstorm scent hangs heavy on the air as Ren lifts it in front of him, not quite into the gap, but enough to light its first meter or so. </p><p>Hux closes the distance between them to get a better look. </p><p>Beyond a narrow slab of dark rock--a grayish granite, not the lustrous stone of the rest of the palace--dusty steps of the same material curve down into blackness.</p><p>It would be strange. It would be inexplicable.</p><p>Except--</p><p>“I know there wasn’t--” Ren starts, but hesitates, biting his lip. </p><p>The saber spits sparks onto the glossy floor as the pieces coalesce.</p><p>Ren didn’t overlook anything in his metaphysical ground search.</p><p>It’s obvious.</p><p>Hux represses a smile. “How did you say that bomber got onto palace grounds?”</p><p>Ren’s brows knit, but he powers off the saber, turning to focus on Hux. “They hadn’t found the security gap before we left…?” </p><p>He’s not getting it yet.</p><p>Of course he isn’t.</p><p>“And what did you say you gathered about their regular methods of getting topside clandestine?” Hux continues, and doesn’t wait for an answer. “Trapdoors, yes?”</p><p>Ren’s mouth thins, incredulous. “You think the bomber came up <em> through </em>the palace.”</p><p>“Not necessarily,” Hux replies, clipped, at the doubt in his tone. “But you would agree something was triggered in here, probably recently, that opened this entrance. If there were a system, or--”</p><p>“You think this could lead to an insurgent facility in the underworld,” Ren summarizes, nodding toward the door.</p><p>“It’s a possibility worth investigating, if we’ve got both hidden doors and unexplained terrorist infiltrations in our base of operations.” Hux takes a breath, not quite long enough for Ren to start arguing. “We need to head back to the spire and send a recon team.”</p><p>Ren throws a glance over his shoulder at the gaping entrance, then back at Hux. “Can you find your way?”</p><p>Hux blinks. “I beg your pardon?”</p><p>“I’m going to check now,” Ren says, in an indulgent tone that suggests this should be obvious. “Can you find your way back up on your own?”</p><p>Hux bristles on instinct. “I--” he starts, but breaks off.</p><p>It’s somehow worse that there was no scorn in Ren’s voice, no mocking lilt. It’s a fair question, and he knows it. All of the corridors looked just the same.</p><p>But Hux’s bad head for directions is not the point here.</p><p>“You can’t be thinking to go down there without backup.”</p><p>Ren’s shoulders tense. “I’ve been wandering this palace without backup for the past two cycles,” he says. “I would say <em> you’ll </em> bring the backup, but…”</p><p>“So come back with me,” Hux supplies. His hands drift behind his back into parade rest as if of their own accord. “It can wait that much longer.”</p><p>“We don’t know that,” Ren returns, sharp with something that isn’t anger. It softens, though, as he continues, all but non-sequitur, “I don’t want you waiting up here.”</p><p>It’s a flat statement, inflectionless and unimposing, but the command is implicit. </p><p>This is ridiculous.</p><p>It’s one thing not to leave Hux unguarded on the <em> Finalizer </em>, but here?</p><p>What does he think Hux is going to do up here, somehow shut the door and lock him underground? Shoot down the passageway at his back?</p><p>Hux exhales. “We simply need to deploy a recon--”</p><p>Ren’s already turned back around. “Come on.”</p><p>“Supreme--”</p><p>“That’s an order.”</p><p>
  <em> Fuck him. </em>
</p><p>Hux’s conditioning kicks in.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>This is definitely how Hux is going to die.</p><p>If he doesn’t suffocate before they even reach the underworld--as these stairs get no more airflow than the rest of the palace--he and Ren are walking directly into enemy territory, one crumbling granite step at a time.</p><p>Ren’s saber crackles ahead of them, periodically spewing sparks that gutter against the stone stairs. It casts inconstant red light over the rest of this flight, which trend all but straight down, under a claustrophobically low ceiling. Hux and Ren’s shadows flickers and undulate along the wall to their left.</p><p>For five flights of stairs, they’ve been walking in silence, given the stale, oppressive air. One can only hope Ren’s mentally parsing the same scenarios that Hux is, reaching solutions he should have considered in the terrarium, solutions that will somehow get them both out of this alive.</p><p>Hux has his sidearm, and Ren has his saber (not to mention the Force itself), but even those can only achieve so much, if they’re going to descend through the attic of some Resistance bolthole, all showers of dust and grating stone.</p><p>A whole cluster of Spiral Ten Weequays might be rigging up a second bomber even now, half a kilometer under Hux’s boots. </p><p>Whether he and Ren meet them in the faction’s headquarters or the middle of the stairs, it will be a tall demand of even Ren’s reflexes to stop the xeno the moment before they pull their detonator. Before they send themself, Hux, Ren, and the surrounding vicinity up in a baradium-scented fireball.</p><p>
  <em> Here lie the First Order’s best, crushed beneath the rubble of the Imperial Palace. </em>
</p><p>Hux has survived the Galactic Civil War, the Commandant, Snoke, Starkiller, and Ren himself, only to get blown to mineral at the Supreme Leader’s right hand.</p><p>Because said Leader rushes headlong into everything he does, saber blazing, incurably convinced of his own indestructibility. </p><p>Because Hux has never had any choice but to tolerate it. To mitigate it, to the best of his ability.</p><p>(Because somehow, Hux has wound up taking his orders.)</p><p>Ren’s boots thud ahead of Hux’s, echoing in the still but frigid air.</p><p>Anxiety gnaws at the pit of Hux’s stomach like a parasite, biting deeper with each step. His heartbeat hasn’t skyrocketed, but it throbs in his ears.</p><p>They need to turn around.</p><p>They need to turn the hell around, while they still can, and send a full squadron of death troopers into this hole to investigate and <em> end </em>whatever is on the other side. This is infantry work, not a mission for top organizational leadership. Ren may be both, but Hux is not. </p><p>Hux is not, and he’s going to be carbon particulate below the surface of Coruscant, while the galaxy spins back into total entropy--</p><p>He inhales. Exhales.</p><p>Focuses on the wavering red beam of the saber ahead, on the rhythmic beat of Ren’s footfalls.</p><p>Panicking won’t save either of them from disintegration.</p><p>They simply need to turn around. </p><p>Hux opens his mouth to suggest it--it can’t do any <em> harm </em>at this point--but stops as Ren’s next step echoes differently, flat and heavy--the timbre of solid ground. He stutters to a halt at the foot of the stairs; Hux is a single step behind him.</p><p>They...haven’t fallen through the roof of a rebel hideout. Not yet, anyway.</p><p>Ren wordlessly lifts the saber, turning the light left, then straight ahead, then right. It illuminates a low-ceilinged tunnel that the stairs slope into, rough-hewn and dust-coated. The air seems damper down here, mildewy, but still stagnant.</p><p>The red plasma flickers across Ren’s drawn face. He says nothing.</p><p>Though there’s no immediate peril, Hux’s pulse hasn’t quieted. </p><p>“Well?” he asks, above it, to Ren’s pensive look. “Shall we send a squadron to cover each passage?”</p><p>Ren shakes his head. “We’re already down here,” he says.</p><p>Even by nothing but the saber light, his gaze is drifting again--not just roving between the passages, but probing each of them, with a sense beyond ordinary sight. </p><p>His jaw tenses briefly as he peers right. Something sparks in his gaze, and his frame cants just slightly forward, as if straining to hear a conversation through a wall.</p><p>Hux’s hand drifts to the grip of his blaster. “What?” he murmurs.</p><p>Ren purses his lips, but makes no other sign.</p><p>After too many heartbeats, he says, “I don’t know.”</p><p>Great. Excellent. Fantastic.</p><p>Hux is at least half a kilometer below the former Imperial Palace, at least a full kilometer from his datapad or a functioning comlink, and Ren’s extrasensory perception has decided to fail him. </p><p>“We ought to go back--” Hux starts, but Ren shakes his head again.</p><p>“We can handle it,” he says, simply, “between the two of us.”</p><p>Hux would rather not test that hypothesis, but Ren doesn’t ask for his input. He turns on his heel down the right-hand passage, taking with him the sole source of light down here.</p><p>Hux flicks off his blaster’s safety, as he has no choice but to follow.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>The right-hand passage slopes downward at a steady gradient, the walls and floor smoothing out the deeper they get.</p><p>It must be some sort of tunnel through underworld bedrock. It will probably spit them out a hundred levels below the palace, at this rate.</p><p>The saber bobs ahead, its light catching on the lustrous walls, in Ren’s hair, on Hux’s boots.</p><p>The air grows more stifling, or else Hux is finally getting somewhat winded. </p><p>The only benefit of dying down here is that at least they won’t have to climb back <em> up </em>this tunnel, much less the stairs above it.</p><p>But it’s little more than a few meters before Ren stops abruptly ahead of Hux, flinging an arm in front of him at waist-level, a wordless order to stay back.</p><p>In front of them, the tunnel’s ceiling drops noticeably, now just a few centimeters above Ren’s head, even as its sides give way into a low chamber like an anteroom. By the saber’s flickering light, two additional passages branch off ahead.</p><p>The right is entirely dark, but the left radiates an indistinct, red-orange glow, as if from a light source at the far end. It wavers enough to be fire, but there’s no smell of smoke.</p><p>Hux purses his lips, then drops his voice to a hiss, “So one is clearly inhabited, and the other may very well lead nowhere. Now we know. You can return with any squadron you like.’</p><p>Ren’s gaze roves his face with a quick disinterest, before returning to each of the passages in turn. He nods toward the right-hand tunnel. “I think you’re right about that one,” he observes. “Dead end.”</p><p>“And the other?” Hux prompts.</p><p>If whoever’s providing that light is close enough, Ren will be able to give a total count of life forms, and possibly a read on each of their current moods.</p><p>But he bites his lip, fingers squirming at his side. He peers into the glow for long enough to have spaced out entirely, but turns back to Hux, something muted, controlled, in the line of his gaze, the set of his mouth.</p><p>“I don’t know,” he says, glancing at the passage again, then back at Hux. “You can wait here if you’d rather.”</p><p>Hux considers. “Someone needs to be able to report your disappearance,” he decides.</p><p>Never mind that Ren <em> might </em>be more cautious down there if he knows he has no one to watch his six.</p><p>He holds Hux’s gaze for a moment, with that probing microscope look, but appears to reach no conclusion.</p><p>“Okay,” he says, clipped. “If you hear anything--”</p><p>“I’ll make my determination,” Hux finishes, brooking no debate.</p><p>Ren foists no argument, issues no order, neither <em> come running, </em> nor <em> run for help. </em> He powers off his saber, but keeps it in hand, then turns on his heel into the red-lit passage.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>The darkness that follows isn’t total, but the ruddy undulations from the tunnel are a poor substitute for the fierce light of the saber.</p><p>Even the faintest reverb of Ren’s footsteps soon disappears, leaving a quiet so complete it seems stifling on its own.</p><p>Hux keeps one hand on his blaster, then moves to the edge of the tunnel they entered through, putting his back against the wall. It gives him full view of each of the three entrances--not that it will do much good to see an attacker coming, but anything is better than having yawning darkness behind him.</p><p>He’s barely settled against the smooth stone, shivering in his jacket, when an indistinct hissing breaks the silence. He straightens against the wall, pulse picking up.</p><p>The sound came from the dark half of the chamber, like a ragged exhale, or a whisper from across a room: all consonants, no words. The echo of it dissolves into the silence. For a single, thudded heartbeat, the quiet returns, absolute.</p><p>Then the sound picks up again, louder, undeniably a murmuring voice, though Hux doesn’t recognize the language. It reverbs up the darkened passage, the one Ren pronounced a dead end.</p><p>(Ren is apparently overtired. Not functioning at full capacity.)</p><p>A second voice joins the first, then a third, all whispering in turns, drawing louder, closer, like a breaking wave.</p><p>Hux draws his blaster, muscles tensed against the stone behind him.</p><p>He knew this was going to happen.</p><p>He fucking <em> knew</em>.</p><p>And now Ren is off down the opposite tunnel, and what can only be hostiles are approaching from the darkness.</p><p>He’s alone.</p><p>He’s a sitting target.</p><p>He needs to <em> run </em>, but there’s no guaranteeing they won’t catch him on the stairs.</p><p>And then there’s <em> Ren</em>, his CO, whom he’d be abandoning on enemy territory if he ran for it. Ren, who’s a surer bet for defeating a party of insurgents than Hux’s own legs and blaster on the stairs.</p><p>The whispers swell to the volume of a soft breeze, the language breathy and unintelligible, but the cadence urgent, each speaker talking over the other, the echoes mingling.</p><p>Hux’s pulse slams in his ears. They’re coming this way, moving fast enough he can’t outrun them, particularly since he’s waited this long to decide.</p><p>“<em>Fuck</em>,” he breathes, probably louder than he ought.</p><p>His boots click over the murmuring, and they can probably hear him, but it doesn’t matter, he needs to <em> move-- </em></p><p>He bolts under the gaping arch of the left-hand tunnel, blinking in the red glow. It’s noticeably brighter even a few steps in, emanating from a wider entrance far ahead.</p><p>Hux slows his pace as the whispers fade, the anteroom left behind.</p><p>Perhaps he shouldn’t have left. Whatever that group is could be climbing the stairs already jetting up toward the palace and Hux’s best officers like a programmed missile.</p><p>
  <em> But what could you have done, how could you have stopped-- </em>
</p><p>Another sound--this one high, shrill, prolonged--freezes Hux in place, shatters every coherent thought in his mind.</p><p>It’s a shriek, long and desperate. It can only have come from the arch ahead.</p><p>Hux’s every instinct screams to turn back, but there’s no safety in the anteroom, up the stairs, in the palace itself. Another shriek follows the first, pitched lower but just agonized, then a third, a fourth. It doesn’t stop, so loud Hux can hardly think.</p><p>The red light at the end of the passage remains steady, but it can only be a fight down there. There’s no sound of blasterfire, but it has to be lost in the echoes. Another cry rings out, and another again on top of it, deafening.</p><p><em> What the hell is Ren </em> doing <em> down there? </em></p><p>Hux can only head toward him, toward the sound and the light.</p><p>The shrieks grow louder, more frantic, with every step. A shadow briefly crosses the red light of the arch ahead, but it flickers back brighter, spilling out onto the floor in front of Hux. He grits his teeth against the crescendo of sound. His ears throb, skull vibrates. The opening yawns in front of him.</p><p>A single voice shrieks like a missile, above the clamor.</p><p>Hux’s blood pounds in his ears. He’ll be walking into a laser trap of flying plasma: blue and green latticework, the spitting column of Ren’s saber.</p><p>Hux raises his blaster, steeling his nerves, even as the scream rattles his skull.</p><p>He has to do this.</p><p>He emerges into a broad chamber, ceiling level with the tunnel, pistol pointed into the light.</p><p>The shrieks don’t fade. They cut off abruptly, like a failed transmission. One second full volume, the next--not static, but silence.</p><p>No blasterfire marks the air, no reek of burnt flesh, nor the thunderstorm scent of the saber.</p><p>Hux’s breath comes ragged, adrenaline draining as he scans the room. It’s empty, except for a single tall shadow, standing over a waist-high plinth at its center.</p><p>“Hey,” Ren says, turning toward him. Concern darkens his tone. “What is it?”</p><p>“I--” Hux starts, still breathless. He tosses a glance over his shoulder at the tunnel, then surveys the room again. It’s clear. The red light emanates from a prismatic object in Ren’s hand. “I thought…”</p><p>“Thought what?” Ren asks, but doesn’t wait for an answer. “It’s just us down here.”</p><p>“Are you…” <em>Certain</em>, Hux means to say, but the quiet speaks for itself, and Ren’s senses, at least, are historically trustworthy. His voice is steady, level; none of the screams could have been his.</p><p>
  <em> What the hell, what the hell-- </em>
</p><p>It was a trick, obviously. Of silence, nerves, and exhaustion. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s gotten tinnitus.</p><p>Hux thins his lips, tucks his blaster back into its holster with unsteady hands.</p><p>“I found it,” Ren says, filling the silence.</p><p>It actually takes a moment for Hux’s reeling mind to register what he’s talking about, but a second glance at the object in his hand fills in the gaps.</p><p>“Oh,” Hux replies, hands drifting behind his back. “Oh, your…” He nods to the prism. “...thing.”</p><p>It was apparently here, after all. </p><p>“I don’t know how I missed that door when I was by myself,” Ren continues, slowly, as if still processing the fact. </p><p>“You were tired,” Hux says, hollow in his own ears, over the echo of the imagined shouts.</p><p>His gaze drops to the prism Ren’s holding, scrambling for something, anything, else to focus on. It’s pyramidal in shape, slats of wrought metal framing the red glow inside. The light pulses faintly within its dark casing, between Ren’s fingers like a heartbeat.</p><p>Ren looks between it and Hux, an unmistakable smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. “Believe me now?”</p><p>“I never said I--” Hux starts, but stops short as Ren nods to him.</p><p>“Come here,” he says, softly.</p><p>Hux crosses the floor in a few strides, coming to a stop once the little pyramid is the only thing between himself and Ren.</p><p>Beside him, the pedestal juts seamlessly from the floor, as if it were carven from a stalagmite or other natural formation. Crumbled rock rests on top of it, still sharp, enough to have held the artifact into the stone without impeding its light.</p><p>The pyramid itself is unimpressive, if heinously bright. It shows out a pleased quirk at the corner of Ren’s mouth, a present, <em> buzzing </em>glint in his eyes. What he thinks it’s going to somehow teach him, that he’s clearly so excited about, Hux has no idea. The thing looks utterly useless except as a makeshift glowrod.</p><p>Hux is about to point out that since he’s found it--<em> happy now? </em>--they ought to get back upstairs and to the command center. They have a vector that the Spiral Ten cell definitely does not use to come topside to report, after all.  </p><p>But Ren turns to him first, holding out the pyramid. A taut current of excitement threads his voice. “Here,” he says, “test it.”</p><p>“What?” Hux returns, pulse rabbiting--inexplicably--all over again. “No.” He lifts his hands as if to hold the thing off, but they’re still trembling. He lowers them again just as quickly.</p><p>Ren’s eyes flicker as if he noticed, but he knows better than to remark on it. He proffers the pyramid again. “It won’t hurt you.” There’s only the slightest emphasis on the second person. “Just--” He pauses, as if steeling his tone. “--hold it for a second.”</p><p>Hux almost hears <em> please. </em>And on top of Ren’s assurances, the object looks safe. He has no reason to fear a little chemical lamp, or anything down here, apparently, but his own worn-out mind.</p><p>He inhales, then places a hand on top of the pyramid, stiffening his fingers against a tremor.</p><p>Ren stacks his free hand on top of Hux’s as if to cushion it. The metal is cool to the touch, blunt enough that there’s no concern it will cut him. Hux lowers his left hand, making to scoop the object out of Ren’s grasp. Ren’s other hand shifts to cover it in turn, leaving the base of the pyramid in Hux’s palm.</p><p>Hux’s hand quivers against Ren’s callused palm, but Ren presses tighter against his fingers, stilling them. Between their hands, the pyramid kindles Hux’s skin vivid red, shows his bones black within, still with that steady, faint throb of the light.</p><p>Hux has to wrench his gaze from it to meet Ren’s eyes. “I’ve got it,” he says, as firmly as he can.</p><p>Ren nods, then lifts his hands slowly, as if releasing an avian to fly. Once he’s no longer touching the object, the pulse inside flares. </p><p>It’s brighter than before, so bright that it fills Hux’s entire line of sight, obscuring Ren, obscuring the plinth, the stone, Hux’s own hand. It grows warm to the touch.</p><p>Hux’s lips part to ask Ren what the fuck is <em> happening</em>, but the shrieks suddenly flare up again.</p><p>Octaves louder than before.</p><p>Bone-jarring.</p><p>Deafening.</p><p>Light, heat, and sound fill Hux’s awareness, sharp and red.</p><p>For a second.</p><p>Just when the light inside the pyramid is nearly white, it pulses once, then gutters to a dying ember.</p><p>The tinnitus fades to murmurs, to echoes, and the light winks out. Flatline.</p><p>The room pitches into total darkness, so opaque Hux can make out neither the dead object in his hand nor Ren’s outline in front of him. Blood roars in his ears. </p><p>“What did you <em> do </em>?” Hux breathes, muffled by the ringing in his ears.</p><p>But even as it leaves his mouth, he knows the accusation is about to fly back in his face: the thing Ren’s been searching and starving and losing sleep for, and <em> you killed it-- </em></p><p>“You’re okay,” Ren says, in a tone that would be placating if it weren’t charged with a keen note of <em> delight </em>. “It’s okay.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>In answer, Ren seizes Hux’s forearm in the dark, so hard and sudden Hux nearly drops the pyramid.</p><p>Ren’s grasp is like a tourniquet, but in the dark and the echoes, it feels like an anchor to his body, to reality, inching slowly up Hux’s wrist to grope for the object. He lets go as he reaches Hux’s hand, then covers the pyramid with his own. The red light instantly flares up again. It pulses once, resuscitated, as he takes it.</p><p>Tension releases Hux’s shoulders as warm light fills the space between them. A surge of adrenaline drains from his bloodstream; his legs feel like liquid bacta, tingly and unsteady.</p><p>“All right?” Ren asks, but the concern can’t mask the boyish excitement in his eyes, the tug at both corners of his mouth. </p><p>It shouldn’t be unnerving to see him <em> happy</em>, excited, not when Hux hasn’t seen him like this in years.</p><p>But Hux’s ears are still ringing. The red light still sears the fore of his mind. </p><p>“Ren,” he murmurs, unsteady in his own ears, “what is this?”</p><p>The pyramid pulses in Ren’s hand. His gaze sparkles, and he damn near smiles.  “<em> This </em>, General, is going to win the war.”</p><p>Hux almost wants to believe him. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Content Warnings: references to Kylo's canonical training/torture/abuse by Snoke | off-screen lightsaber execution of a would-be insurgent suicide bomber, following an off-screen interrogation; we see the corpse.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Stairs</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>No additional content warnings for this chapter!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>(now)</strong>
</p>
<p>“How did you find me?” </p>
<p>Hux’s breath forms a cloud in the air between himself and what’s left of Ren. It smells like Starkiller out here, sharp with coming snow.</p>
<p>Of all the hundred thousand questions Hux could ask--the how and where of Ren’s apparent survival, about the empty right sleeve, but mostly <em> what the fuck do you think you’re doing here? </em>--this is the only relevant one. If Ren figured out he’s here, who else can?</p>
<p>But Ren (fucking typical) pretends not to understand. </p>
<p>“Combed the planet,” Ren says, tipping his head minutely, ambivalently, to one side. </p>
<p>By the crackling porchlight, the motion shows--impossibly--clear skin above and below his right eye. He’s clearly been living in squalor, yet has somehow afforded a scar removal procedure. (It, however, did nothing for the moles.)</p>
<p>“There are eight droid plants on this continent alone,” he continues, all but abrasively <em> smug. </em>“You didn’t make it easy, if that’s what you’re asking.”</p>
<p>“You know precisely what I’m asking,” Hux snaps.</p>
<p>It’s pure reflex, at this point, the sharp response. Muscle memory. Despite six months and treason between them.</p>
<p>Some nagging, anxious part of Hux warns that Ren, the most powerful being the galaxy, the man he betrayed, won’t need much of an excuse to end him. </p>
<p>Luke Skywalker did less, and Ren chased him for six years.</p>
<p>But Ren doesn’t rise to the sniping. His gaze searches Hux’s face, keen and intent. His posture is sprung combat-tight, and his voice buzzes with something like a thermal charge, energy barely contained. (An <em> up </em>day, Hux tries not to notice.) </p>
<p>Naturally, Ren ignores the question. </p>
<p>“I needed to see you.”</p>
<p>“Well, you have,” Hux retorts. “The company doesn’t tolerate trespassers. Tell me how you found me, then go before I have to report you.”</p>
<p>Ren scoffs, unbearably arrogant, even now, filthy and starved and dispossessed. Fuck him. Fuck everything he ever did.</p>
<p>“You’re not going to report me,” he says. </p>
<p>It takes every remaining fiber of Hux’s conditioning not to roll his eyes. “I’d get an impressive reward, once they ran your biometric,” he replies instead, matter-of-fact.</p>
<p>Ren tries to shrug, but shivers instead. “You’d never see it. I’d turn you right in behind me.”</p>
<p>“The <em> neighbors </em> will turn us <em> both </em>in for a noise complaint if you don’t get off this porch.”</p>
<p>“So let me in to discuss this.”</p>
<p>“To discuss <em> what </em>?” Hux retorts, before he can stop himself. </p>
<p>If Ren’s here to exact justice or whatever, there’s no case left to make that Hux hasn’t made a hundred times over the years. (Ren honestly could have seen high treason coming.)</p>
<p>But instead of going off, demanding answers, Ren glances over his shoulder into the expanse of identical duraluminum pods, roofs dull gray under the clouds.</p>
<p>“Not out here,” he murmurs, but it sounds more <em> anxious </em>than menacing.</p>
<p>“Sense something afoot in the company housing?” Hux sneers, against a chill that has nothing to do with the night air.</p>
<p>“<em> No </em>.” Ren’s response comes almost too quickly, and his gaze flicks momentarily downward. Hux knows the tic--as close as he gets to sheepish. </p>
<p>“No,” he repeats, more measured, recovering his eye contact. “No, but I’m not taking any risks.”</p>
<p>“That would be a first.”</p>
<p>Ren doesn’t even dignify that with a scoff. “We need to talk about this,” he goes on, as grave as before. “It concerns you as much as me.”</p>
<p>Hux sighs. Ren has been back in his life for approximately three minutes, and Hux is already done with the cryptic intimations.</p>
<p>“How did you find me?” he repeats, sharper. </p>
<p>The chill has begun to creep between the stitches of his sweater, and he’s under no circumstances going to catch frostbite for the sake of anything Ren came to tell him. (Not even an apology.)</p>
<p>Ren nods to the gaping darkness behind Hux. “I’ll tell you inside.”</p>
<p>Hux’s fingers tighten around the blaster grip, and it would almost be worth a try. Ren must see the gun, but if he isn’t <em> expecting </em>--</p>
<p>No. </p>
<p>
  <em> (Coward.) </em>
</p>
<p>No.</p>
<p>Hux couldn’t do it before. A month into Ren’s rule, it had no longer even been part of his plan. Any plan. He’s not going to try it now. Not yet, anyway.</p>
<p>“<em> Fuck </em>,” he mutters, and takes a step backward into the pod.</p>
<p>Ren takes it as the cue it is, and follows him inside.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>As soon as the door grinds shut behind Ren, Hux gropes for the living room light control with his free hand.A yellow lampdisk immediately shows out the cracks creeping up the walls, the stained carpet, the scuffed countertop demarcating the kitchen.</p>
<p>There’s no furniture but a single chair behind the counter, so Hux can’t offer him a seat. Not that he would.</p>
<p>Ren’s clearly surveying it, and Hux braces for the snide comment.</p>
<p>Hux looks him up and down, gathering ammunition. Ren looks even worse in the softer light, the hollows under his eyes deeper, his skin drier. His right hand, of course, no more present than it was outside. The same scuffed combat boots he left for Kef Bir wearing have both acquired a hole at the toe seam.</p>
<p><em> And where have </em> you <em> been living, </em> Supreme Leader, <em> the skip behind a spice den? </em></p>
<p>But when Ren meets his eyes again, he seems (another fucking first) ready to keep his word.</p>
<p>“You said you’d come here,” he says, blase.</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“I think it was on...Scipio?” Ren surveys the shabby room before meeting Hux’s eyes again. “You said if everything ever fell apart, you’d just have to go to Bonadan and get a job at a plasteel plant.”</p>
<p>Fuck.</p>
<p>Scipio.</p>
<p>After a blizzard knocked out comms and power, they and two trooper squadrons had been stranded in a mountaintop citadel for four rotations. By the second, they were passing a flask to keep warm.</p>
<p>“That was five years ago,” Hux retorts. “And I wasn’t even sober.”</p>
<p>“And here you are.”</p>
<p>Hux thins his lips.</p>
<p>He was expecting the usual shit: <em> A ghost told me. I had a dream where you had plast residue on your fingers. You’re a wound in the Force, and you’re like a beacon-- </em></p>
<p>But on the other hand, leave it to Ren to remember a random tipsy exchange across the years and parsecs. (To take it seriously and be <em> right. </em> ) At least there isn’t some technical trail or--as far as Ren reports--some Force sign flashing <em> War Criminal Here. </em></p>
<p>And at least Ren--as guilty and presumed-dead as himself--is the only person in the galaxy to whom he’d ever said the words “<em> if everything fell apart.” </em></p>
<p>At his side, he fingers the blaster’s safety, but doesn’t yet switch it on. There’s no sign of Ren’s lightsaber, but he won’t need it to rid the galaxy of the latest person to give up on him.</p>
<p>“Why did you follow me?” Hux demands.</p>
<p>“I didn’t follow you,” Ren answers, the slightest edge to his tone. “Not until I knew what I wanted to do. I didn’t even know you were alive. I came here to find out.”</p>
<p>Relief uncoils the tension Hux didn’t notice between his ribs, his brain signalling <em> safe </em> against the rational observation that <em> Kylo Ren </em> is standing in his excuse for a living room.</p>
<p>“Well, congrat--” Hux starts, but Ren cuts him off.</p>
<p>“I told you I need to talk to you.” The sallow light catches on the oil in Ren’s hair.</p>
<p>“<em> I </em> don’t need to hear another word out of your mouth.”</p>
<p>Ren gnaws his lip for a second. “You want to hear this.”</p>
<p>Hux taps the blaster’s barrel. “Is it that you’re leaving right now?”</p>
<p>“You really don’t want me to leave.”</p>
<p>Hux bristles. He’s never wanted anything else for the past seven years.</p>
<p>“I’m fairly certain I do,” he replies, icily.</p>
<p>Ren swallows, and his hand clenches and unclenches, poking skeletal out of his battered jacket sleeve. “Hear me out.” All these months, and he’s still trying to issue commands. “Please.” His voice splinters--only faintly, but it’s unstable nonetheless.</p>
<p>Hux, of course, has seen him more broken than this. Still, it’s unlike him. He should be fuming or sobbing or caving in the pod’s roof. It should be dramatics with Ren, not quiet. (Not more quiet.)</p>
<p>“Why are you suddenly asking my permission to insult me?” Hux scoffs. “You’re here to accuse me of treason, very well, get on with it.”</p>
<p>Ren’s brows knit for a moment, eyes dart in what actually resembles genuine confusion. “I’m not… I--” He recovers himself, acquires that lofty tone he does. “I came to offer you your position back.”</p>
<p>Hux’s lips part, and the sound that escapes them falls somewhere between disbelief and amusement. “What?”</p>
<p>“What I said,” Ren replies, breezily, holding Hux’s gaze. “I’ll expunge your record. I’m asking you to come back to the Order.”</p>
<p>Hux blinks. He honestly thought Ren’s mind had snapped at some point before the loss of the <em> Finalizer </em> , eighteen months ago now, and before anyone had so much as breathed the word <em> Palpatine. </em></p>
<p>But what Hux thought was madness is nothing compared to this level of delusion. </p>
<p>Ren clearly isn’t Supreme Leader of anything. He’s skeletally thin, and dressed more like a fugitive than Hux is.</p>
<p>“‘Come to work?’” Hux echoes, disdainful in his own ears. “If you haven’t noticed, there is no <em> Order </em>left to go to.”</p>
<p>It’s a wide opening for the flare of anger--”<em> and whose fault is that?”-- </em>but Ren just tilts his head to one side, cocky. “But what if there were?”</p>
<p>If there <em> were, </em>Hux wouldn’t be manning a plasteel cutter from six to six every cycle at the edge of the Corporate Sector.</p>
<p>If there <em> were, </em>and there were any chance Hux could find them, any chance he could rally any loyalty on his own, after everything, he wouldn’t tolerate the deafening quiet here.</p>
<p>(If there were, he’d have something worth living for again.)</p>
<p>Some carnal instinct, some parasitic optimism, flickers awake between his ribs. <em> If… </em></p>
<p>But Hux smothers it just as quickly.</p>
<p>“There isn’t,” he says.</p>
<p>“There could be,” Ren replies, for all his appearance, more evenly than Hux has heard in a year. “If we get to the rest of the fleet before the Republic’s militias do.”</p>
<p>Hux nearly drops the gun. The silence that follows isn’t the dull quiet of Bonadan nights; it’s a living thing, permeating the half-meter of air between them like a contagion.</p>
<p><em> This </em>is what Ren wants.</p>
<p>Ren wants it <em> back. </em></p>
<p>Never mind that he personally handed it to Sheev Palpatine.</p>
<p>Never mind that Hux hasn’t seen him since orbit above Kijimi, and the galaxy has turned inside-out since then.</p>
<p>Ren’s fucking transparent. He always has been. </p>
<p>He’s volatile, and he’s hopeless, and he’s never known what he was after. (That’s why he needed Hux--even when he didn’t know it, which was usually--the marksman to aim and point the galaxy’s best and strangest human gun.)</p>
<p>On his own, he shoots aimlessly.</p>
<p>It’s a pattern, at this point.</p>
<p>Try the Jedi until he realizes his family can’t make him stay. Work for Snoke until he gets tired of taking orders and abuse. Lead the Order until astropolitics loses its thrill, and he’d rather take quests from the voices in his head. </p>
<p>Convince himself he can cross Sheev Palpatine, fail, and now regret it all, infinitely too late.</p>
<p>He’s bereft and desperate, a child futilely bashing together the jagged edges of a toy he’s shattered.</p>
<p>It’s a pathetic new low.</p>
<p>“The fleet,” Hux replies, icily, “is gone. The Resistance fried the comms network, and hunted them down destroyer by destroyer in the weeks after Exegol.”</p>
<p>Ren holds his gaze, steady if bloodshot, if cloudy with hunger and exhaustion. “I’ve heard something else.”</p>
<p>The vagueness freezes the aftershocks of <em> if </em>between Hux’s ribs. (It’s almost a relief.)</p>
<p>All kinds of rumors must circulate in whatever vagrant jungles or shitty cantinas Ren’s been frequenting, months or even years late, exaggerated by time and booze and audience. None of them are worth entertaining.</p>
<p>Hux would fold his arms if it weren’t for the blaster. As it is, he traces the trigger well. “Get out.”</p>
<p>Ren’s gaze sparks, impatient. Incredulous. “I just told you there was a chance to get the Order back.”</p>
<p>“I just told <em> you </em> there is no Order to return to.”</p>
<p>“But--” Ren inhales, seeming to gathering himself. “--if there were, you would want to. You would do whatever it took to reclaim it. I would.”</p>
<p>Hux sighs. </p>
<p>He has work tomorrow. To earn money. To save for his <em> actual plan, </em> based on the <em> concrete reality </em>of his situation. (Never mind the crushing quiet.)</p>
<p>Ren, of course, has never been good with concrete reality, but at least that’s no longer Hux’s concern.</p>
<p>“Well, if you’re so convinced, go then.” Seven years’ worth of vitriol hangs on the words. “I’m certainly not stopping you.”</p>
<p>Ren’s throat works for a moment. His cloudy gaze flashes <em> present. </em>Hux almost flinches, waiting for the lampdisk to shatter overhead, invisible energy to dent the pod’s thin walls.</p>
<p>But Ren’s gaze just flits down again, then back up, but no less <em> here. </em></p>
<p>“I want you to come with me,” he says, simply, like it’s the conclusion of a syllogism whose premises are implicit.</p>
<p>(Like he said, <em> “Let’s finish this </em>,” in the ruined throne room eighteen months ago. The presumption. The informality. The olive branch.)</p>
<p>(Hux rejected it then, too, with less reason.)</p>
<p>“The last time you told me about a fleet hidden in the depths of the galaxy,” he says, with a mirthless twist of his lips, “I don’t recall it ending well.”</p>
<p>“The last time I told you about a fleet hidden in the depths of the galaxy, there <em> was </em> a fleet,” Ren retorts. “This time it’s ours. Or part of it, anyway.”</p>
<p>Hux closes his eyes, tips his chin toward the ceiling, and rubs his temples. It’s nearly oh two hundred on Bonadan, and he’s wearing a secondhand sweater, and it’s been six months since he betrayed the man in front of him, yet he is <em> still </em>talking Kylo fucking Ren through his delusions.</p>
<p>If the Force is real, it’s been mocking him for seven years now.</p>
<p>It’s fucking two in the morning, and he can hardly keep a straight face.</p>
<p>“Do your rumors say where these ships <em> are </em>?” he asks, then finally looks back at Ren.</p>
<p>“Nothing concrete yet, but--”</p>
<p>Hux keeps dissecting. “Do they say how to <em> find them </em>?”</p>
<p>“Not in the Outer Rim,” Ren seems to concede, “but once we got to Wild Space--”</p>
<p>“There is no ‘we.’”</p>
<p>Ren’s eyes are black holes. “I know.”</p>
<p>“Then why the fuck are you here?” Hux demands. He’s pushing it with Ren, he’s pushing it with the <em> Force </em> , but he always does. <em> Did. </em>Back then, in a time that has long passed.</p>
<p>It takes Ren a moment to reply. The swearing should have riled him up, should have summoned an answer in kind, but instead he’s pensive. That embarrassed look clouds his face again, from splintering linoliplast back up to Hux’s eyes. </p>
<p>There’s an answer beyond the presumption, beyond the loneliness that he carries, that’s always lingered behind his eyes like a gnawing void. </p>
<p>There’s something <em> else </em> , and a part of Hux wants to snarl, <em> “It was rhetorical, idiot </em>,” and see whether that gets him strangled. (He knows damn well it won’t.)</p>
<p>Hux refuses to ask again. Prompt him. </p>
<p>He’ll say, or he’ll go.</p>
<p>Ren’s teeth poke into his lower lip, then he steadies himself. “I need--” He stops. He spread his fingers like he does, then curls them back up, slow. “I need your help to get there.”</p>
<p>“What, can’t you steal a ship with the Force?” <em> For that matter, can’t he steal </em> food and clothing <em> with the Force? </em></p>
<p>Ren’s face shutters again. “No.”</p>
<p>A cold, amphibious thing settles in the pit of Hux’s stomach. </p>
<p>“What?” he repeats. </p>
<p>“I can’t,” Ren says, tersely.</p>
<p>“What do you mean, you can’t?” Hux presses.  “If I had your abilities and thought this was true, I’d have--”</p>
<p>Ren cuts him off. “No, I mean I <em> can’t.” </em>He looks at his tattered combat boots, then back up to a spot somewhere above Hux’s shoulder, then to Hux’s face. His voice drops to a murmur. “I can’t touch the Force. I don’t feel it. Not since Exegol.”</p>
<p>“You can’t feel it?” Hux echoes. It doesn’t compute, Ren can’t just <em> lose </em>one of his senses. The follow-up tumbles out: “What happened on Exegol?”</p>
<p>Ren shakes his head. “It doesn’t<em> matter, </em>” he says, too sharply to be convincing.</p>
<p>Hux wouldn’t prod. Whatever metaphysical bullshit made the news frequencies report that Ben Solo died a Resistance martyr, it has nothing to do with Hux anymore.</p>
<p>He isn’t going to ask--he <em> isn’t-- </em>but the facts crystallize, anyway, overruling any curiosity. </p>
<p>“You think you’re going to find the fleet, retake the throne, and defeat the Republic, and you don’t even have your old abilities?”</p>
<p>Ren tilts his head to one side. “Not <em> yet, </em>” he says, all but indulgently. “It’ll be a quick stop on Bosthirda, a sector over. I’ll meditate at the temple there, feel the Dark again. Then we find the fleet.”</p>
<p>At the word <em> temple, </em>Hux walls off the echoes of crumbling stone, the suffocation, the whispers, that he just dreamed.</p>
<p>“And how am I supposed to help with getting there?” he asks, more to drown out the echoes than because he cares.</p>
<p>“Not just with getting there,” Ren replies, quickly, “but it isn’t exactly a transit hub--”</p>
<p>Hux scoffs. “They never are.”</p>
<p>Ren ignores him. “--so I’ll need a private ship, and...” His gaze drops to his empty right sleeve.</p>
<p>
  <em> Oh. </em>
</p>
<p>“So,” Hux surmises, “you want me to steal a ship with you, then fly it, because you can’t afford a cybernetic after...Exegol?”</p>
<p>“I didn’t say this happened on Exegol,” Ren snaps, looking up. “And no. I want--”</p>
<p>Hux cuts him off. “Well, where did it happ--”</p>
<p>“It was stupid,”’ Ren mutters.</p>
<p>“I imagine.”</p>
<p>Ren shakes his head, sighs like he thinks he’s the adult here. “I <em> want </em>to take the Order back. I’m asking you to join me.”</p>
<p>“Because Pryde’s gone?” Hux asks, archly.</p>
<p>“Because--” Ren’s eyes flicker, anger to something <em> warmer </em>. It gutters quickly. “--because you and I are still here, and neither of us wants to do anything else.”</p>
<p>“I <em> am </em> doing something else.”</p>
<p>Ren has the audacity to snort. “Look at you.”</p>
<p>Hux sneers. He knows what Ren’s seeing. The unraveling sweater. The purple circles under his eyes. The dark brown hair dye, copper roots showing where it’s faded. (He needs to buy a new pack tomorrow; he can’t leave to pick up where the war left off.)  </p>
<p>Before Hux can generate an appropriately snide reply, Ren continues, “We can retake it. Every planet, every parsec. This Republic won't be any stronger than the first two. We can do this."</p>
<p>There once was a time when words like this--even a few sentences--were all Hux needed to hear. When the sheer fact that Ren seemed to give an actual fuck about the Order and its goals, would have made Hux’s chest feel like bursting with <em> hope. </em></p>
<p>The gap could be bridged, their viewpoints aligned, their strengths perfectly matched. <em> This </em>could be made to work. Possibly for the rest of his life.</p>
<p>But that was a year ago, now.</p>
<p>Even Hux’s own rhetoric is empty when there’s nothing to back it up.</p>
<p>He pops his lips. “We have no credits, no powers, no heading, and no credentials,” he says, back to the do-not-hold-your-blaster-by-the-round-end voice reserved for young soldiers. “If we--if you and I, together, even looking like..<em> .this </em>--were to traipse around the Outer Rim asking for news of the First Order, eventually someone would put the pieces together.”</p>
<p>“You don’t know that.”</p>
<p>Hux scoffs. “I can infer.”</p>
<p>Ren runs a hand through his hair; with no flesh on them, his fingers look as long as Snoke’s. “So you’re saying you would go if the risk was low enough,” he seems to surmise.</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>“Then what--” Ren starts.</p>
<p>“Nothing,” Hux interrupts. Down the hall, the radiator pops loudly. Its warmth doesn’t reach the living room. “Nothing you could say would convince me to deal with you and your...abilities again, of my own volition.”</p>
<p>He gave it seven fucking years.</p>
<p>It isn’t going to work now, just because Ren’s bad influences are dead.</p>
<p>Ren’s jaw tightens. When he replies, it’s partially through his teeth. “The Order would never have gotten this far without my abilities.”</p>
<p> “As far as my subsidized pod on Bonadan after its <em> complete disintegration </em>?” </p>
<p>“I was trying to get us everything the Force had to offer,” Ren all but snarls back, perilous, volcanic.</p>
<p>Hux’s lip curls. “So naturally, you sold our organization to Sheev Palpatine.”</p>
<p>"And <em> you </em> turned around and sold it to the Resistance!" Ren retorts aloud, flinging his hand to his side.</p>
<p>"I sold the <em> Emperor </em> to the Resistance,” Hux corrects, caustic in his own ears. “To get him and his fleet and his staff and his genocide out of the way."</p>
<p>Ren’s gaze is stormy, but his voice flattens. "To get me out of the way."</p>
<p>If he thinks he’s going to get Hux’s pity <em> now, </em>some kind of apology for ruining Ren’s perfect plan to reanimate the Galactic Empire to supplant them both--</p>
<p>“You didn’t factor in,” Hux says, stiff as a briefing.</p>
<p>It’s a barb, of course, but the only sign that it hits its mark is a momentary sag of Ren’s shoulders, a shadow that dims his gaze.</p>
<p>“I’m not going to have this argument again,” he says, stonily.</p>
<p>“Good,” Hux replies. “So go.”</p>
<p>Ren’s fingers flex at his side. “Come with me.”</p>
<p>It’s as if he isn’t hearing a damn word out of Hux’s mouth.</p>
<p>“I have no reason,” he says, enunciating slowly enough to condescend, “to go anywhere with you, ever again.”</p>
<p>“I just gave you a reason.”</p>
<p>“Yes.” Hux twists his lip drily upward. “Getting the Order back, supposedly.”</p>
<p>“Eventually,” Ren returns, tone unmistakably heating again. </p>
<p>Inevitably, Hux’s grows colder. “<em>Eventually </em>I would be recognized, arrested, or killed by some vigilante.”</p>
<p>“You don’t know that,” Ren insists, for the second time this conversation.</p>
<p>“I do know that,” Hux says, and his grip tightens around the blaster. “I’m not going to throw away my freedom for your latest delusion.”</p>
<p>“Your <em> freedom </em>?” Ren’s volume is up now, rage churning under every syllable. “You’re wasting your life in this shithole.”</p>
<p>“And whose fault is that?” Hux demands, involuntarily matching his tone.</p>
<p>Ren runs a frustrated hand through his hair. “I’m trying to fix it! I’m trying to get you out of here.”</p>
<p>Hux doesn’t need to be rescued. (Not by Ren. Not for the <em> n </em> th time.) Even if this <em> shithole </em> is so quiet it keeps him up at night.</p>
<p>“I’m <em> going </em> to get off-world eventually,” he replies, but it comes out less than certain.</p>
<p>“And do what?”</p>
<p><em> See the galaxy, </em> is halfway out of Hux’s mouth, but faced with the remotest probability that some fragment of his life’s work is still out there, he can’t. The old plan--his <em> only </em>plan--shrivels on his tongue. </p>
<p>He already knows what Ren would say. (Even if he looks too worn to have a proper laugh.)</p>
<p>Hux shakes his head. “It isn’t your concern.”</p>
<p>“Yes, it is,” Ren retorts. “<em> You </em> are.”</p>
<p>“I am not.”</p>
<p>Ren’s lips part, as if he has an answer prepared, but close again just as quickly. They’re peeling, like they do when he’s been biting them too much, or outdoors planetside for any extended period. The late autumn chill can’t be helping, this side of Bonadan.</p>
<p>After a moment, he says, halting but inflectionless, “You’re part of the Order, and the Order is my concern. Still. Don’t act like it isn’t yours, too.”</p>
<p>Hux inhales sharply. His oaths loop through his memory, branded into his synapses like muscular reflex. All his resources. All his skills. All his time. For the organization that would beat the galaxy into a place worth living.</p>
<p>
  <em> If-- </em>
</p>
<p>Hux shakes his head. “Even if <em> something </em> is there, we can’t get to it.”</p>
<p>“We have to try,” Ren says, as if this were as natural as it should be. </p>
<p>“I don’t <em> have </em> to do anything you command,”  Hux retorts, though it isn’t strictly true. </p>
<p>As far as he’s aware, neither of them were ever stripped of their rank. So if they were to return-- <em> No. </em></p>
<p>
  <em> You know damn well what he’s like, you know damn well what will happen, you know damn well there’s nothing left, there’s no going-- </em>
</p>
<p>“I’m not commanding you,” Ren replies, tipping his too-sharp chin up just slightly. Still regal. “I’m...offering an alliance.”</p>
<p>“To me,” Hux clarifies, “a traitor.”</p>
<p>“Look, I--” Ren breaks off, studies a glue-patched crack in the linoliplast. When he glances back up, he swallows. “I know the Order still had your loyalty.”</p>
<p>It’s the closest he’ll get to an admission of wrongdoing: the implication that he’d departed from the Order’s best interest, while Hux never had.</p>
<p>Hux pops his lips. “A lot of good my loyalty does a dead organization.”</p>
<p>“What if it isn’t dead?” Ren insists.</p>
<p>“We’d die before we found out.”</p>
<p>Ren’s fingers work anxiously at his side. “We have to try,” he says again. “I can’t do this alone.”</p>
<p>“We--” Hux starts, but cuts himself off in time. Shit. ”<em> You, </em>” he corrects himself, will only waste your time.”</p>
<p>“I have to try,” Ren repeats, and his voice snags in the back of his throat. “What else am I supposed to do? The Order was--” He stops, bites his lip. “The Order was all I ever had.”</p>
<p><em> All </em> you <em> ever had </em> ? Hux has to bite back. <em> All </em> you <em> ever had, when I gave it thirty years? </em></p>
<p>But the pitiful part is that it’s true.</p>
<p>Born a victory kid, born, an Organa, a Solo, a Skywalker. The Core’s darling, his uncle’s protege, Snoke’s pupil, the Emperor’s vessel. </p>
<p>The only thing he’s ever had is the one thing he took for himself.</p>
<p>For all he couldn’t keep it, it only follows that he won’t let go of it, even now. </p>
<p>Hux scoffs. “You could always consider a job at the plant,” he says, letting his gaze drop to Ren’s right sleeve. “They must have a...button you can push, or something.”</p>
<p>Ren’s lip curls. “Fuck you.”</p>
<p>“I mean it.”</p>
<p>“I would lose my mind.”</p>
<p>Hux thins his lips where he should smirk. “You clearly already have,” he says, weary in his own ears.</p>
<p>Ren says nothing for a long moment, holds Hux’s gaze until it roves over his shoulder, still cataloguing. Ren’s shadow stretches beside him, watercolor gray against the grimy flooring. Even in Hux’s periphery, he’s a dark outline against the blank walls. A shout in the silence.</p>
<p>If he does what Hux wants, he’s going to walk out the door into the oh-dark-thirty chill and never return, leaving Hux with white noise and twelve hours on the assembly line.</p>
<p>“Don’t act like you don’t want this,” Ren says, finally. Hux focuses on his face again, and his eyes are bright. Desperate, like Hux has seen a thousand times before. “The Order was your life.”</p>
<p>As if Hux doesn’t know that.</p>
<p>He buries his nails in the palm of his free hand, swallows down the stone in his throat.</p>
<p>“I wasn’t supposed to outlive it.”</p>
<p>“You haven’t,” Ren returns, his own voice tightening, “not entirely. Maybe there’s a reason for that.”</p>
<p>Hux squeezes the blaster’s grip until he feels his knuckles whiten, until they ache with the pressure. He sets his jaw against a quiver in his chin.</p>
<p>Ren has no idea what he’s exhumed. </p>
<p>Six months, and Hux has finally buried it. Six months, and Hux will never forget, but he’s accepted the galaxy as it is. (It is not his.)</p>
<p>Six months, and the wound hasn’t healed, but it’s scabbed over. </p>
<p>Ren just peeled it off, and <em> if </em>stings all over again.</p>
<p>
  <em> If there’s any chance, any at all-- </em>
</p>
<p>No.</p>
<p>Hux knows better.</p>
<p>“Don’t do this to me,” he says, as flatly as he can.</p>
<p>“Do what?” Ren asks, too quiet.</p>
<p>Hux sets his jaw, even as emotion pulls like a net around his ribs. “You’ve already taken it from me once,” he says, unsteady in his own ears. “Please don’t make me grieve it all over again.”</p>
<p>Something swift and stricken crosses Ren’s face. “Hux--” he starts. </p>
<p>His hand rises toward Hux’s wrist. Hux’s vision tunnels to nothing but the motion. His pulse hammers in his ears. Ren brushes the sweater sleeve, and it’s light, it’s gentle, but it doesn’t matter, it--</p>
<p>Hux flinches back, knocking his hand down. “Don’t fucking touch me.”</p>
<p>Ren recoils as if he were the one struck. His voice wavers. “Shit, I didn’t mean to--”</p>
<p>Hux purses his lips. “I don’t want,” he says, enunciating each syllable like a separate chastisement. “You to touch me.”</p>
<p>“I’m not,” he replies, still tremulous, and makes to lift his hands, in something like surrender.</p>
<p>The right sleeve of his jacket pulls back at his elbow with the motion, baring the skin of his forearm. </p>
<p>Baring the mangled end of his wrist. </p>
<p>Scar tissue stretches over sharp bone, puckered and pinkish. This arm has withered more than the rest of him. Hux could wrap his little finger and thumb around the end of it, where it juts out of the battered leather.</p>
<p>Ren holds it up for just long enough for both of them to realize. His ears redden, even in this light. He drops his arms to his sides, so sheepish Hux is almost embarrassed to look at him.</p>
<p>Hux has visited enough worlds to have heard myths of shades. Not ghosts, not like Ren’s, but faded apparitions, the embodiment of a last breath, smoke-gray and half-translucent. </p>
<p>Remnants of the dead, the parts of them that wouldn’t rest, roaming their old homes as if they couldn’t imagine being unwelcome. An echo of an echo of themself.</p>
<p>Hux didn’t believe in shades until now.</p>
<p>Ren is a shipwreck of what he used to be, broken and gaunt and worn. Grieving the loss he knows damn well he brought upon himself.</p>
<p>Hux knows the feeling. Knew it six months ago with a different pistol pressed to his own temple, and the newscast ringing in his ears. </p>
<p>With his good hand, Ren tugs at the opposite jacket sleeve, futilely adjusting it. </p>
<p>This was once the most powerful being in the galaxy.</p>
<p>A sudden abscess swells and tightens in Hux’s chest, lodging between his ribs like an igneous rock, still half-lava. He purses his lips, sighs.</p>
<p>“Look,” he says, quietly, defused, “I meant what I said. I get a bonus for any new-hire I refer, if you’re interested.”</p>
<p>Ren looks up, a strange light in his eyes, a familiar pull at the corner of his mouth. “You’d vouch for me?”</p>
<p>“For your tenacious work ethic,” Hux allows.</p>
<p>But Ren shakes his head. “I can’t do that.”</p>
<p>“Then I can’t help you.” Hux runs a hand through his hair, then nods toward the door. “Go. Now.”</p>
<p>Ren bites his lip, jaw tightening, and <em> fuck. </em>He might not feel his Force, but he’s going to yell, punch a wall, try to grab Hux’s arm again and reason with him. Hux braces for it, tenses against it. </p>
<p>It doesn’t come.</p>
<p>Ren wets his lips, dips his head. This is his sadness, this is his apathy, this is the pit of it. The telltale: he actually takes a step toward the door.</p>
<p>But he stops in his tracks, turns to meet Hux’s eyes. His are fathomless voids.</p>
<p>“I didn’t think it would be you,” he says, quietly.</p>
<p>Hux raises his eyebrows. Indulges the cryptic bullshit, one last time. “Me that what?” </p>
<p>“That…” Ren seems to fumble for verbiage. “...despaired.”</p>
<p>Hux smiles thinly. “I’m sorry to disappoint.”</p>
<p>Ren’s lip quirks again, pitiful and aborted. He looks down at the threshold, then back at Hux. “It’s fine.”</p>
<p>He’s lying, but for once, Hux doesn’t mind.</p>
<p>Ren presses the door’s control panel, and the duraluminum grates open with a burst of icy wind. Hux steps back from it, squinting, as the door slides back.</p>
<p>The gap is hardly five centimeters wide, though, when another gust of wind hits. It whistles against the metal of the door, ruffles Hux’s hair. It blows a stream of snowflakes inside and onto the linoliplast.</p>
<p>Another gust rushes in, and another, as the door grinds its way open onto swirling white. The flakes are coming thick enough to obscure the opposite row of pods, lit gold by Hux’s porchlight. They rush through the doorway and onto the floor in eddies.</p>
<p>“Shit,” Ren mutters, but doesn’t flinch back from it.</p>
<p>Gooseflesh rises under Hux’s sweater, and he chafes his upper arm with his free hand.</p>
<p>Ren’s hovering by the door, clearly bracing himself.</p>
<p>The question tumbles out of Hux’s mouth before he can stop it. “Where are you headed?”</p>
<p>Ren turns back toward him, shrugs his coatrack shoulders. Snowflakes glitter in his hair. “I don’t know.” </p>
<p>“Where have you been staying?”</p>
<p>“Around.”</p>
<p>
  <em> Fuck.  </em>
</p>
<p>Hux shuts his eyes briefly, against both a fresh gust of wind and a wave of bone-tiredness, washing over him like a tide.</p>
<p>Fuck Ren. Fuck him.</p>
<p>“Outdoors,” Hux assesses, rubbing his arm.</p>
<p>“Usually,” Ren seems to allow. He finishes turning. His back is to the doorframe, though he doesn’t fill it.</p>
<p>Fuck.</p>
<p>
  <em> Fuck. </em>
</p>
<p>Hasn’t Hux saved him enough times already.</p>
<p>
  <em> So let him go, let him freeze, as of an hour ago you thought his death was on you, and you didn’t give a damn, why should that change, why-- </em>
</p>
<p>But that was before Hux had seen him.</p>
<p>The shade. The skeleton. Desperate, not despondent, and the more pitiful for it.</p>
<p>(Powerless and shattered, but still the loudest thing Hux has heard in six months. The sharp note in the white noise.)</p>
<p>Hux drops his arm and sidesteps Ren to press the door’s control panel. It grumbles in its track, but starts to slide closed, leaving Ren inside.</p>
<p>“Until it’s stopped,” Hux explains, nodding to the snow.</p>
<p>Ren looks him up and down, apparently floored silent. His chin crumples, and <em> shit </em>, if he starts crying, by all that might be sacred, Hux will open this door again--</p>
<p>But he seems to collect himself.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” he says, low. </p>
<p>Hux shakes his head, dismissive.</p>
<p>Some habits are immortal.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>An hour later, Hux still can’t sleep.</p>
<p>Snow piles up on the windowsill above the radiator, sticks in the fine lattice of the screen. It limits visibility to a few meters in front of the pod, blurs everything beyond to a gray curtain in the darkness.</p>
<p>He’s turned the light out in the bedroom again, but he couldn’t even get in bed, too unnerved, too w<em> ired </em>to try again.</p>
<p>Not with Kylo Ren curled under the worse of his two blankets a room over.</p>
<p>In the silence after the door shut again, Hux had announced he was going to bed, more to avoid continuing the conversation than based on any delusion that he’d actually be able to sleep. Ren, he’d said, could sleep in here if he wanted. He looked like he needed it.</p>
<p>Ren had nodded. <em> “Sure.” </em></p>
<p>He kept to the monosyllables when Hux brought him a blanket, the exhaustion in his face finally catching up to the rest of him. </p>
<p>
  <em> “Thanks.” </em>
</p>
<p>Hux left him shuffling onto the floor, his jacket creaking for a bit while he apparently got comfortable. </p>
<p>But Hux has heard nothing out of the living room since he returned to the window and the radiator.</p>
<p>He works his fingers in the warmth, tracing the rough skin over his knuckles at intervals, all fine, sunken lines like scales.</p>
<p>He needs to stop. Leave the rough patches exposed to hot air for this long, and they’ll split and crack at work tomorrow. He’ll take off his gloves at lunch break to a bloody mess.</p>
<p>He flexes one hand again, then forces them both to his sides. They slip naturally behind his back, clasp together in some farce of parade rest. He closes his eyes for a moment, resting them against the stark white out the window, but there’s no sleep in him at all.</p>
<p><em> You need to get in bed, you need to lie down, you need to </em>try--</p>
<p>But he can’t.</p>
<p>He can’t, and the minutes have only dragged slower now that his pacing circuit has been limited to the end of the hallway. He’s been avoiding the living room, since Ren’s such a light sleeper.</p>
<p>But anything is better than just standing here, evaluating the weather and his hands and how miserable he’ll be at work tomorrow, on a scale of one to <em> Steadfast. </em></p>
<p>(Evaluating everything but Ren’s offer.)</p>
<p>He turns on his heel and loops out of the bedroom, back into the hall. He means to double back at the end of the hallway, but his feet carry him into the living room by rote.</p>
<p>His bare feet fall light on the linoliplast. </p>
<p>Along the near wall, Ren doesn’t stir.</p>
<p>By the grayish light of the porch lamp and the snow, he’s curled in on himself, head pillowed on his right arm. The threadbare blanket makes a ridgeline of his thin legs, bent at the knee. His side rises and falls, his breathing soft but starkly audible in the quiet.</p>
<p>Hux stands less than a meter from his feet, which would ordinarily be enough to wake him. Without his abilities, though--</p>
<p>Well.</p>
<p>The loss should at least be buying him sounder sleep, but going by his appearance, Hux seriously doubts that. How well can anyone sleep when they’ve been staying <em> around </em> , combing eight plasteel plants, or however many he’s managed. (Only to be told <em> no </em>.)</p>
<p>It isn’t as if he deserves any better.</p>
<p>Hux takes another step, starting to loop around him. He doesn’t wake. His shoulder moves up under the blanket on an inhale, then falls minutely.</p>
<p>It still doesn’t fully compute.</p>
<p>Kylo Ren is lying here, and he’s <em> breathing. </em>He’s alive, after everything, which shouldn’t be a shock. If the years together proved anything, it was that Ren is as indestructible as Hux himself.</p>
<p><em> Just because he’s still alive doesn’t mean you had to </em>let him in your fucking house. </p>
<p>No. No, it doesn’t.</p>
<p>Hux’s fingers curl at his side. It doesn’t, but what else was he supposed to do, just <em> not </em>get answers?</p>
<p>
  <em> You got your answers, you should have thrown him out, you weak absurd pathetic-- </em>
</p>
<p>(Stop.)</p>
<p>Hux shivers as the cold of the living room creeps under his sleeves. Shakes his head and keeps walking. Ren’s breathing punctuates the silence between his footfalls.</p>
<p>When he loops back into the bedroom, the chrono reads <em> 3:05. </em></p>
<p>His alarm is going to ring in t minus two and a half hours.</p>
<p>The hoverplows will have cleared the walkways by the time he has to leave for work. It will be a gray morning, frost lacing the windows, a few stray flakes drifting through the air.</p>
<p>He’ll brew his last bag of that weak green tea he got on clearance, then pull on his cloak and boots, and--</p>
<p>Leave.</p>
<p>Leave Ren here, or put him out first thing--it doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>The chances are fair that he’ll go on his own; he was about to, an hour ago. He made it perfectly clear where he’s headed. What he’s going to attempt.</p>
<p>But how he’ll even clear Bonadan alone, much less get to...wherever it is, Boss-something, to apparently retrieve his connection to the Force.</p>
<p>It’s an absurd plan, and even more laughable to attempt by oneself.</p>
<p>
  <em> But he said he has to try. </em>
</p>
<p>He <em> said </em>he can’t live any other way.</p>
<p>Having looped back into the bedroom, Hux straightens his pillow, brushes off lint. Tomorrow, he’ll wash the second blanket and layer it on.</p>
<p>Because he’s going to be here tomorrow.</p>
<p>And the next rotation, and the next, and the one after, for however many years it takes to buy a ship, as legally as possible under a false identity. </p>
<p>
  <em> By then the fleet will be history-- </em>
</p>
<p>He presses his fingers into the pillowcase.</p>
<p>The fleet is already history.</p>
<p>
  <em> To you. </em>
</p>
<p>It’s <em> over. </em></p>
<p>But the thought has latched on like a parasite.</p>
<p>
  <em> If there is one ship left, even one, aren’t you obligated to-- </em>
</p>
<p>No.</p>
<p>He isn’t obligated to anything. He declared himself dead, and the galaxy believed him. (Ren didn’t, of course, but Ren doesn’t count.)</p>
<p>Particularly not when <em> Ren </em>is unmoored and grieving and deluded.</p>
<p>And fresh out of some sort of metaphysical encounter he refuses to discuss, but that has left him more certain than he’s ever seemed that the Order is all that matters to him.</p>
<p>Too fucking late.</p>
<p>Hux knows this.</p>
<p>He knows.</p>
<p>Returning to the Order has never been an option for him. He limped to an escape pod six months ago and <em> knew </em>, even as he punched in Nar Shaddaa’s coords, high on bacta and symoxin, that he could never go back. That the life he’d built was over.</p>
<p>But a piece of it is curled in his floor, wrapped in his blanket.</p>
<p>A piece of it has <em> survived </em>, and if there is more—</p>
<p>
  <em> There isn’t.  </em>
</p>
<p>And there can’t be, because if there were—</p>
<p>If there were, he would have to trade this little simulacrum of life, for the faintest possibility of returning to it.</p>
<p>(He would have to, because he’s only ever known one love.)</p>
<p>In the void beyond Bonadan, beyond the assembly line and the hair dye and the glue coming up through the cracks in the floor, beyond Hux himself, the universe is still expanding, the galaxy spinning out of control.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Ren will disappear in the morning like one of his ghosts. Hux will pull his levers at the plant until his knuckles split inside his gloves. He’ll go to the store and return to the pod with numb fingers and bags on his arms. There will be nothing here. </p>
<p>No sound in the house but the crunch of his slush-drenched boots and the tea water boiling.</p>
<p>
  <em> Tomorrow and the next day and the next— </em>
</p>
<p>(He can’t.)</p>
<p>The radiator is silent.</p>
<p>But Ren’s breathing echoes from the living room. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Windows</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So it's more like Friday <em>or</em> Saturday updates...?</p><p>But anyway, no additional content warnings for this chapter--here we go!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>(sixteen months ago)</b>
</p><p>Ten rotations after Ren’s subterranean acquisition, the war has decidedly not been won.</p><p>Coruscant itself, however, is a different story: not total victory, not yet, but enough routed insurgents, surrendered precincts, and battle-wracked city sublevels to be considered <em> occupied </em>.</p><p>To be left, therefore, with the closest thing the Order has to a peacekeeping force, while the <em> Finalizer </em>and its leadership move on to the next crisis.</p><p>From the war room in the central spire, Hux makes a final pass over the plan of battle to be left with the remaining troops, shielding his datapad’s screen with his own shadow. The brightness is dialed all the way up against the fierce mid-afternoon sun beating through the windows.</p><p>He keeps having to smooth down his hair, thanks to the oscillating fan on his desk. It’s the single article in the war room connected to the small generator they finally installed in the Palace last week, and a poor substitute for a central cooling unit. However, he does feel slightly less like he’s suffocating. And he’s been able to keep his jacket on, at least.</p><p>He bats down his hair as the fan pivots toward him again, restraining a huff of irritation.</p><p>Just eight more hours here.</p><p>Four hundred eighty standard minutes, and he’ll be back on the <em> Finalizer </em>, with actual temperature control, a bed that isn’t the Alderman’s old couch, and a ‘fresher not also in use by half the officers.</p><p>He’s going to take a proper fucking water shower. For at least thirty minutes.</p><p>Eight. Hours.</p><p>
  <em> (Toughen up, you’ve stood worse for longer.) </em>
</p><p>He scoots the fan a few centimeters further back from his face, then attempts to return to the document at hand.</p><p>He gets no further than a few words before heavy footsteps call his attention.</p><p>Ren comes through the war room’s open entrance without knocking. “General,” he says, crossing the floor toward the sprawling desk.</p><p>“Supreme Leader.”</p><p>Hux makes to rise, but Ren waves a dismissive hand. “At ease,” he says, airily.</p><p>Reaching the desk, Ren bends over the caf tray on the other side, mostly there for the benefit of the constant stream of analysts and officers in and out of the command center. The Supreme Leader pours himself a cup.</p><p>Hux powers off his datapad and sits more or less at attention, waiting.</p><p>In thirty years of service, Kylo Ren is the only person Hux has ever met who looks <em> better </em>after two standard weeks of combat. </p><p>His color has returned, and no matter how much energy he’s been burning on the underworld frontline, it forces him to fuel himself to some extent. To rest, too.</p><p>He looks freshly showered, hair tidy, complexion clean of the underworld grime that’s been clinging to his skin for days, if flushed with the heat up here. </p><p>Moreover: his eyes. They’re bright, clear, and undeniably <em> present. </em>It’s a welcome reversion.</p><p>Ren’s been missile-focused on the sub-surface fight, and it shows in the progress.</p><p>They’ve scored surrender upon surrender <em> ahead </em>of schedule, underworld insurgent factions slowly crumbling under the pressure of surgical subterranean TIE strikes and Ren’s own tactical leadership. (Not to mention his terrifying reputation.)</p><p>He’s been back and forth to the surface a number of times to confer with Hux, but they’ve been mostly checking in via secure holo, swapping good news as the fight began to turn. It’s been an ideal quantity and quality of interaction, if not enough to recover from last week’s bullshit.</p><p>He’s reported nothing more about the properties of his little pyramid (the Sith holocron, he keeps correcting Hux), but has seemed content for now simply to have recovered it. (Hux isn’t about to <em> ask </em>.)</p><p>Ren stirs sugar into his caf, then places the stirrer delicately back on the tray. “We’re still scheduled to hit hyperspace by tonight?” </p><p>How he’s drinking that shit in here--even with the fan running--is beyond Hux’s comprehension. If he needs the caffeine this badly, he must be more tired than he looks.</p><p>“Yes, sir,” Hux replies. He places an elbow on either side of the datapad and laces his fingers. “Peavey’s fully briefed and prepared to step into the ground commander role.”</p><p>Ren blows on his caf, peers at Hux over the lip of the cup. “Did you promote him yet?”</p><p>“Of course not,” Hux replies. “He’ll have to subdue the planet first. I imagine a new title will… sufficiently incentivize him.” He raises his eyebrows, all the commentary he’ll allow himself.</p><p>“All the way to Governor, right?” Ren asks, as if he catches the implication. He has no more respect for the rank-obsessed Imperials than Hux does. Possibly less, in fact.</p><p>Hux inclines his head. “Unless you have an objection, sir.”</p><p>“No, no objection,” Ren replies, sounding like he’s holding in a laugh. “That’ll make him feel important.”</p><p>“I should hope so,” Hux scoffs.</p><p>Ren looks casually out the window. “And get him off your ship.”</p><p>“A convenient corollary,” Hux admits, testing the point of agreement.</p><p>The corners of Ren’s mouth quirk unmistakably upward. “I’d have done it if you hadn’t,” he says, in that same breezy tone. “He doesn’t enjoy working under young upstarts. But he’ll do well with his little fiefdom.”</p><p>“He’d best,” Hux returns, evenly.</p><p>The victory--not to mention finding that thing--really has done a number on Ren’s mood. When he’s like this--useful and reasonable--he’s more tolerable a colleague. </p><p>Or. Well. </p><p>Commanding officer. Political partner. Whatever. It depends on the day with Ren--or the hour. </p><p>And now he’s standing here, apparently absorbed with his caf, waiting for Hux to carry the conversation <em> he </em> started.</p><p>Hux thins his lips. “Was that all you needed, Supreme Leader?”</p><p>Ren takes a sip before responding, “No. Actually I--” He runs a bare finger up the seam of the flimsi cup, as if stalling for time, rather than scrambling for phrasing. “I wanted you to reroute us for tonight.”</p><p>“Reroute?” Hux echoes. “What do you mean, sir? Is there something wrong with our projected path to Thyferra?”</p><p>Ren shakes his head. “Not the route. We need to head to Teth.”</p><p>“Teth,’” Hux repeats, as the location clicks. <em> Shit. </em>“That’s nearly to Wild Space.” </p><p>“Yes,” Ren replies, flatly. <em> So what? </em>goes without saying.</p><p>“But--” Hux thins his lips, steels his expression. He’d rather Ren weren’t standing over him. Looking down at him. </p><p>“Supreme Leader,” Hux picks up, crisply, “it was my understanding that invading Coruscant represented a pivot toward the Core and Inner Rim.”</p><p>“You and I go where we’re most needed.” Ren drains his caf cup, and it floats into the rubbish bin beside the desk. “Right now, that’s Teth.”</p><p>Hux tolerated the last sporadic rerouting only because it was toward Coruscant, an actual world of astrographic and political significance. But if he’s suddenly--inexplicably--trying to get to a random backwater, it’s just the sort of chaotic decision-making that lost the Resistance on Crait.</p><p>He sees right through Ren. Someone has to.</p><p>“What have you dreamt this time?” he replies, as coolly as he can. It comes out a sneer.</p><p>Ren’s knuckles whiten around his cup. “I didn’t--”</p><p>“Or does it have something to do with your new artifact?”</p><p>The fan hums toward Hux again, ruffling his hair. He slaps the power switch <em> off </em>, and the heat immediately settles on the still air, heavy and stifling.</p><p>Ren hesitates, looking between Hux and the fan, the fan and the blackened skyline out the window. Something flares in his gaze, but gutters just as quickly.</p><p>“It was a Signals tipper,” he says, all but flat, meeting Hux’s eyes again. “L-Series, one oh eight three...four, I think, if you want to look.” He nods toward Hux’s datapad. “It just came out.”</p><p>Hux unlocks his datapad and opens his inbox in a single fluid motion. “I should have reviewed it sooner,” he says, neither excuse nor apology, scrolling for the report.</p><p>He typically attempts to filter which intel makes it to Ren’s attention. He can’t restrict the Supreme Leader’s accesses, he can’t remove him from distribution lists, but he can at least shape Ren’s strategy by simple omission.</p><p>Ren’s distractible. Has been known to leap at the first <em> whisper </em> of the Jedi or Organa, or before, his uncle. A chief adviser is meant to assist with prioritization, to separate signal from static. Hux needs to be keeping <em> current-- </em></p><p>“You’ve been busy,” Ren says, with an air of shrugging, though he just sips his caf. </p><p><em> You’ve been in combat </em>, Hux doesn’t reply, taking the excuse Ren’s offered. He’s liberal with them, in a way Snoke never was, a corollary, perhaps, of actual operational involvement. He knows what takes precedence, and when.</p><p>“I suppose,” Hux allows, tapping the report once he finds it.</p><p>A quick skim shows Ren has a point: It’s a distant world, home to a history of lawlessness and an unidentified frequency that maintains regular communication with secure central Resistance lines.</p><p>“I don’t want to say it’s definitely their new base,” Ren starts, as soon as Hux looks up, “but a remote world, what looks like covert Resistance connections…” His eyes search Hux’s face, clearly awaiting some sort of counterargument. </p><p>But he’s made no mention of the Force, and this lead is--if not entirely solid--at least intriguing. </p><p>Ren’s interest doesn’t automatically signify it will be a waste of time. Even Coruscant wasn’t. Moreover, after the nonsense of the past two weeks, this appears to be some faint shadow of a step back toward normalcy. Hux can play along. </p><p>“It bears investigating,” he agrees, already pulling up a new message. “I’ll notify Navigation of the change immediately.”</p><p>Ren holds his gaze. “Thank you, General.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>By the start of the next alpha shift, the <em> Finalizer </em>is somewhere in the Mid Rim, barreling toward the fight on Teth at a hundred parsecs an hour.</p><p>In the bridge-adjacent conference room, Hux’s tea steams beside his datapad. The chrono over the foot of the table reads <em> 0745 </em> , and the tablet pings. A notification banner drops over half the sitrep he’s reading: <em> 15 minutes overdue: Morning Briefing. </em>He swipes dismissal. He knows the damn meeting is off to a late start. </p><p>Ren was supposed to have been here at <em> 0730 </em>, per the meeting invite Hux woke up to almost two hours ago, now.</p><p>The hilarious part is that he considered it a <em> definite </em>indicator that Ren’s swinging back toward…whatever their normal has ever been. </p><p>The morning briefings were originally instituted in Ren’s first week with the Order, when half an hour tete-a-tete had been the most efficient way to bring him up to speed on current operations. </p><p>They continued for most of Starkiller’s construction, as long as Ren wasn’t with Snoke  (and there hadn’t recently been a particularly nasty argument) but stopped abruptly in the six months before its completion.</p><p>Ren had been obsessively preoccupied with Skywalker, Hux consumed with nothing but the base (until Ren became <em> too </em>preoccupied with Skywalker, and Hux had to worry about that, as well). They’d hardly been speaking except in curt tactical exchanges, snide warnings.</p><p>When Hux woke up to an invite to an 0730 meeting invite, five cycles after Crait, he’d almost assumed it was some kind of glitch, some specter of better times.</p><p>Ren hadn’t even left his quarters for the past four cycles, much less solicited Hux’s opinion on anything mission-related. But he’d been waiting in this same conference room with ration bars on the table, and had evenly asked about Hux’s priorities for the week. (On anyone else, it would have looked like an apology.)</p><p>Every alpha shift they’ve spent shipside has been the same, with variations on the breakfast rations, perhaps, but the important part is that Ren’s <em> been here. </em></p><p>Every alpha shift, until now.</p><p>Hux checks his messaging app again, knowing perfectly well he didn’t somehow miss the notification for a response to his litany of texts and voice calls. He swipes over to his tracker application, and yes, Ren’s still pinging in his quarters.</p><p>Ren doesn’t sleep through anything, much less datapad alerts or an alpha shift alarm. He’s either ignoring the meeting <em> he </em>scheduled, or… </p><p>(Or it’s something worse.)</p><p>“Damnit,” Hux murmurs. He takes a bracing swallow of tea, then leaves to collect his commanding officer.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>It isn’t as if Hux is expecting Ren to pick up the comm outside his quarters any more than his personal comlink. </p><p>It isn’t.</p><p>But the crackle of static as he buzzes--yet again--and announces himself--for the second time--worms its way under his skin.</p><p>He reported here for the first four cycles of Ren’s rule, two standard months ago, while Ren’s muffled voice made it clear he wasn’t far out of bed.</p><p>The same conversation, four times in a row, until Ren finally showed up and asked for a morning briefing:</p><p>
  <em> “Orders, Supreme Leader?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Locate the Resistance.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I’m trying.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I know.” </em>
</p><p>Even then--crashing, after everything since Jakku--Ren could manage <em> acknowledgement </em>.</p><p>There’s no excuse for the radio silence now.</p><p>“Supreme Leader,” he says, without letting go of the push-to-talk button, “this is Hux. I’m--” <em> Checking on you? Retrieving you? Ready to strangle you, you useless fucker? </em></p><p>He jabs the pad again, so it will emit a new chime inside. </p><p>He gives it a second.</p><p>Two.</p><p>Three.</p><p>
  <em> Damn him. </em>
</p><p>“--coming in,” Hux finishes, and scans his thumbprint for the override.</p><p>The doors whir apart, and Hux crosses the threshold into eighty-percent lighting. He stops dead. Hardly hears the doors hiss shut behind him.</p><p>It looks like a cyclone touched down in here. </p><p>The room is worse than Hux has seen it in years. </p><p>A lampdisk blinks and fizzles overhead. The night-table chrono blinks <em> 00:00, 00:00, 00:00.  </em></p><p>The monochrome bedclothes trail tangled onto the floor. An old-fashioned bound book lies face down in the middle of the flatsheet. Yellowed pages surround it like autumn leaves.</p><p>At the foot of the bed--accordingly--Ren looks like he’s been backed over by a sandcrawler. </p><p>His hair could be mistaken for wind-tossed. Indigo shadows have gathered under his bloodshot eyes, and the skin on his knuckles looks cut or scraped raw. Dried blood forms a thin, coppery residue across the back of his hand, as if trickled down and coagulated. The shattered remains of a thermal mug glitter beside his bare feet.</p><p>The room’s only stable point is the alcove once occupied by the charred remains of Vader. Within it, the Sith pyramid pulses steadily amid the wrack--the only possible cause of this.</p><p>Hux pops his lips. “Have we won the war?”</p><p>Anger chases shame chases exhaustion across Ren’s face. He lands on a watery sneer. “Do you think so?” </p><p>Hux sighs. Surveys the ruin, and represses a second jab.</p><p>“Did you rest at all?” he asks, then cushions it with, “Sir.”</p><p>Ren doesn’t answer. Instead, he jerks his head toward a new and crater-like impression in the paneling beside the darkened ‘fresher entrance.</p><p>“I already alerted Facilities.”</p><p>
  <em> Decent of you. </em>
</p><p>“Good,” Hux says aloud. It sounds dry and almost nervous in his own ears, but he isn’t afraid. </p><p>Not for his own safety. (Not again.) This is the aftermath. The shock and shame of having <em> done it. </em>He’s always numb by now--so past it he isn’t even remarking on Hux’s forced entry.</p><p>If there’s anything terrifying, it’s the fact that Ren is <em> still </em>doing it. As far as Hux is aware, this is only the second time this has happened since he took the throne, the first being the dream that led ot Coruscant.</p><p>Wasn’t the artifact supposed to help?<em> (Isn’t having Snoke gone supposed to cure him?) </em></p><p>Hux swallows. His right fist has balled tight; he forces the joints to relax.</p><p>“What about that?” he ventures, with a nod toward Ren’s bloody knuckles.</p><p>Upon closer examination, there’s a tremor in his fingers.</p><p>Ren looks at them. He blinks as if noticing the wound for the first time. “It’s shallow,” he says, like that means the same as <em> it’s fine, </em>then he meets Hux’s eyes. “What time is it?”</p><p>“After oh eight hundred, sir.”</p><p>For a split second, Ren looks stricken. What color was left in his complexion drains, and his lips part all but imperceptibly. He squeezes his eyes shut. <em> “Shit.” </em> His uninjured hand squirms at his side. “ <em> Shit.” </em>He seems to force himself to look back at Hux. His voice is splintered, but he’s trying to cover it. “You’re here to brief me.”</p><p>Hux clasps his hands behind his back. “I was, but--”</p><p>Ren cuts him off. “How much longer to Teth?”</p><p>“About eight more hours,” Hux replies, evenly, “if you wanted to…try again.”</p><p>Ren drags his clean hand through his hair. “Better if I don’t,” he scoffs.</p><p>Hux doubts it, but there’s nothing to say. Nothing that can be done.</p><p>Ren’s entered combat in states worse than this. The scuffed knuckles are nothing compared to Snoke’s burns and bruises, or, hells, to a bowcaster quarrel.</p><p>He’s supposed to be stable now. He’s supposed to be handling his Dark and his demons. <em> He has everything you’ve ever wanted, and he can’t even cope with it-- </em></p><p>There’s nothing Hux can do.</p><p>(About any of it.)</p><p>“Give me a minute,” Ren tells his silence, and disappears into the ‘fresher.</p><p>The holocron winks out behind him.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Within minutes, Hux is seated in what functions as Ren’s personal receiving area, somewhat divided from his actual sleeping quarters. </p><p>His tea--retrieved from the original conference room by a K4 unit, he wasn’t going to let it go to <em> waste </em>--steams on the endtable. He zapped it in the kitchenette nanowave across the room, but it isn’t the same on the reheat. He blows at the steam anyway, taking cautious, scalding sips.</p><p>Before it’s cooled enough to drink properly, Ren rounds the partition, and settles into a standard-issue armchair across from the couch Hux has perched on. No caf, no ration bar, just his datapad, his rubbed-raw knuckles, and his freshly-combed hair.</p><p>“I started going over the latest surrenders last night,” he says, unlocking his datapad, as if none of the past hour--none of the past <em> two weeks </em>--has happened.</p><p>He swipes up on the screen, and a miniature galograph projects above it, worlds occupied while they’ve been focused on Coruscant flagged in yellow.</p><p>Hux blinks. Directly to business, then. Apparently nothing about the holocron--or whatever kept him up all night--is up for discussion, which is just as well. Hux far prefers concrete numbers.</p><p>“Twenty individual worlds,” he supplies. “Twelve systems, and--”</p><p>“--fifteen whole sectors,” Ren finishes, pinching the menu beside the projected map. “And we’ve got standard terms for…” He skims his datapad’s screen first, then meets Hux’s eyes, the question obvious.</p><p>“About half, sir,” Hux replies, settling into this, or trying to. (Trying, that is, not to look at Ren’s damaged hand, or cut his eyes at the entrance to the storm-swept bedroom.) “I’ll send preliminary messages to most of those before we reach Teth, but I believe some of the larger worlds will merit proper talks.”</p><p>“I agree,” Ren says, smoothly. “I saw Naboo for sure, Christophsis, the other two in the Bardotta system…”</p><p>“Kril’Dor,” Hux adds the most resource-rich of the cohort as soon as he starts to trail off. Like Bespin in the Outer Rim, it’s a gas giant mined from facilities in its atmosphere.</p><p>“Yeah.” Ren taps at the projection again, zooming in on the Jalor sector. “We could probably get a solid cut of raw tibanna. Or, well.” He shoots a glance at Hux. “Not solid.”</p><p>Hux rolls his eyes. “And personal reassurances probably won’t hurt,” he says, over the lip of his mug, “after all the rigmarole.”</p><p>Kril’Dor’s Presidency vetoed surrender motions on multiple occasions since Starkiller, and (according to intelligence) clandestinely bankrolled resistance groups across the planet in anticipation of an invasion. The surrender came--unexpected to the point of suspicion--after a single maximum-casualty air raid.</p><p>Ren nods. He was following it as closely as Hux was until Savareen and his apparent vision, then Coruscant. “When should we go?”</p><p>“That depends on Teth,” Hux replies, extracting his own datapad from within his coat. “And Thyferra, if things are still going as poorly there afterward.” <em> If we’re still needed in the flesh. </em>“I can have Diplomatic Affairs reach out for tentative dates.”</p><p>“Not yet,” Ren says, not dismissive, simply unperturbed<em> . </em>“Let’s just get a list made.”</p><p>“Of course, sir.” Hux pulls up his notes application to document this, though they’ll both remember everything decided, probably in order.</p><p>“You think Kril’Dor first,” Ren prompts, and leaves off the <em> obviously </em>, waiting calmly for elaboration.</p><p>Hux knows better than to miss a beat--for the duration of the list-making, or the discussion of the burgeoning mess on Thyferra that follows, or the overview of the Teth reporting after that. </p><p>He’s known Ren too long for it to be unnerving, the metronome-swing between deranged mystic and stunningly competent military commander, but he still treads carefully. Watches Ren’s eyes to make sure he’s still <em> here </em>.</p><p>(He stays, of course.)</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>He stays and contributes and eventually makes his caf.</p><p>By the time the <em> Finalizer </em> drops out of hyperspace, the morning briefing has somehow lasted three hours.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Teth is a world of high, jagged mesas and low ravines, in a stone so violet it looks ruby from orbit, amethyst on the ground. Thick mists fill the spaces between them. Scrubby black trees climb their sides, clinging in crags by deep, thirsty roots.</p><p>Its upper levels--the flats of the mesas, aspiring above the worst of the fog--were twice colonized in recent history: first by a long-gone religious order, then by the Hutt cartel (now shrunken to the neighboring Nal Hutta system) which converted their austere monasteries into hives of debauchery.</p><p>With both intruders departed, indigenous tribes remain, dwelling deep in the more arable valleys between the plateaus, pinging on First Order collection platforms only with strong interplanetary signals from 20-year-old tech.</p><p>Pinging<em> because </em> of possible Resistance contact.</p><p>Combined with the far-flung location and the pre-existence of sturdy, defensible facilities like the monasteries, it makes sense that the rebels could attempt to headquarter here.</p><p>The monastery the <em> Finalizer </em>ground team has landed in, at any rate, feels drafty and subterranean enough to suit them.</p><p>Hux pulls his coat tighter as freshly-promoted Captain Mitaka finishes his ground status briefing.</p><p>The surface map projected between himself, Mitaka, Ren, and a gaggle of other officers glimmers watery in the whitish light pouring through the open monastery entrance. </p><p>After an order from Ren to land here, about 100 klicks from the attack point, the leadership is meeting in the ruin’s cavernous atrium, while infantry troopers mill about on the flagstone pavilion outside.</p><p>“Good,” Ren says, as Hux shivers. “With the storm system moving out, we’ll be clear to land in about two hours. FX-1568 will take three squadrons into the ravine. DL-3381 will take one to scout the monastery, and I will accompany them.”</p><p>“Yes, sir,” chorus the two infantry commanders. Their modulated voices echo in the vaulted room.</p><p>“General Hux,” Ren turns to him, but continues in the third person, addressing the staff, “will make decisions on reinforcements and air support based on data transmitted from the ship to the ground base.”</p><p>Hux blinks. His <em> yessir </em>isn’t expected--it isn’t an order, isn’t addressed to him, and he’s run enough ground bases over the past two months that it could be considered standard procedure.</p><p>What fails to compute is the sole data source Ren’s proposing. </p><p>“Supreme Leader--” Hux starts, level, but a tired shadow crosses Ren’s face before he’s gotten out another word. Hux ignores it. “--I assume I’ll also be utilizing data received from the forward deployed team?” <em> From you, jackass. </em></p><p>“The comms situation looks bad down there,” Ren returns. “One powerful signal is getting out, but all the scans show a dead zone otherwise.”</p><p>“The locals simply may not have other tech,” Hux retorts, but restrains himself. He has to focus on what matters. He lowers his voice to a timbre reserved for the youngest cadets. “But regardless, a trooper could relay information to the ground base in person, if it came to that.”</p><p>Ren looks at him for a moment, then says, bone-dry, “The ground base will be <em> here </em>, General.”</p><p>“What?” Hux replies, stunned momentarily inarticulate. That.... It neither computes nor so much as <em> registers </em>. He quickly gathers the threads of an argument. “We’re two hours by transport from the drop zone.”</p><p>The entire <em> point </em> of a ground base is to relay ship-scanned information to combatants--to <em> Ren </em>--in near-realtime. Even without traditional comms from the locals, there will be any interplanetary transmissions, chemical and bio-readings to determine weapons in use, the Order’s current manning calculus and odds of victory.</p><p>Two hours’ difference--with the likely poor comms situation--could mean survival or decimation for the deployed units.</p><p>But Ren seems unbothered by the distance.</p><p>“Right,” he says, with a glance at the faint lines of the holomap, “I’m not setting up a ground base when we don’t know where the fight will be.”</p><p>That’s only partially true: Signals provided the latitude and longitude that the suspicious comms pinged at, but admittedly couldn’t pinpoint the altitude among the mesas and gorges. Ren therefore has a point: set up your base in the wrong spot, and it’s overrun.</p><p>“But it’s worth the risk,” Hux argues. “Combat support is useless to you from here. We might as well be on the ship.”</p><p>“This is closer than the ship,” Ren replies, petulant, and he knows it. He nods vaguely at the shadows of the cavernous room.</p><p>Hux catches his eye and holds it. “I can make my reinforcement decisions just as well from orbit.”</p><p>“Well, you’re not going to.”</p><p>“Why?” Hux demands, but Ren won’t say it. Of course he won’t: <em> Because for some twisted reason, I, the most powerful being in the known universe, live in fear of </em> you <em> . </em></p><p>It’s a compliment, of sorts, if terror didn’t make him so goddamn irrational.</p><p>“I need you on the ground,” Ren says instead, measured, but tight-strung as a grappling cable. Apparently sensing the retort on the tip of Hux’s tongue, he continues, “But I’m not taking you into the thick of combat.”</p><p>Hux thins his lips, keeps up the patient tone. “That’s where this team and I will be most effective.”</p><p>“At too high a risk.”</p><p><em> Since when do you care about risks? </em>Hux barely bites back, instead manages, level, “Nothing we do is without risk.”</p><p>Ren’s gaze flashes with an insistence that isn’t anger. His eyes are like coals, waiting for a spark. “I’m not <em> taking you </em> into that firefight.”</p><p>Really.</p><p>Fucking <em> really. </em></p><p>“So you won’t take me into a firefight,” Hux lowers his voice to a hiss, but it still reverbs under the high ceiling, “yet you dragged me ten klicks below the surface of Coruscant.”</p><p>“Well, maybe I--” Ren hesitates, gnawing his lips. His gaze drops to the mosaic tile between their boots, then flickers back to Hux’s face. “I shouldn’t have.”</p><p>Hux is too pissed off to bask in the near-admission of wrong. “Well, you can compensate by bringing me this time, when it makes actual, tactical sense.”</p><p>“You’re not <em> going </em>into a combat zone.”</p><p>“I was born and raised in a--”</p><p>Ren’s voice drops to a whisper. “That’s an order,” he says, invoking it almost gently, below earshot of the men.</p><p>Hux purses his lips, aware of his surroundings again. Of the absolute <em> indecorum </em>of this argument. </p><p>Around himself and Ren, three officers stare at their feet, four tap too aggressively at their datapads. The two trooper commanders confer in whispers about a new blaster model. Mitaka seems interested in the mosaic on the floor.</p><p>“Yes, sir,” Hux forces out, Academy pert, and the gathered staff returns more or less to professional attention.</p><p>
  <em> Lovely. </em>
</p><p>Hopefully everyone enjoyed the show.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“No connection, sir.”</p><p>Two hours and twenty minutes after Ren’s departure, Mitaka gives the unsurprising update, stiff-spined in front of the alcove Hux has staked as his personal workspace. It’s little more than a niche in the granite wall, really, but there’s a ledge to sit on, and it’s out of the maze of monitors in the center of the room.</p><p>Hux drums the side of his datapad, glances over Mitaka’s shoulder at the throng of officers. “You tried personal comlinks and the shuttle’s system?”</p><p>Mitaka’s gloved hands wring his cap. “Three times each, sir. No signal at all.”</p><p>“We supposed as much,” Hux sighs. He powers his datapad on; only one service bar shows on the lock screen. Even directly below the ship, they’re hardly connected. “Thank you, Captain. Inform me if the ship picks up anything of note.”</p><p>“As soon as we receive it, General.”</p><p>“Excellent.” Hux nods his dismissal, and Mitaka turns, practiced, on his heel.</p><p>As soon as he’s gone, Hux presses his thumb to his datapad’s bioreader, pulls up his inbox from his home screen, and scrolls down for it to load. The progress wheel spins. One bar, for the moment.</p><p>It shouldn’t matter.</p><p>He won’t be getting anything before the analysts scattered at stations across the room do. One or two representatives each collections division and a handful of briefers to synthesize their information, they’ve set up several tidy rows of portable kiosks and readout screens across the faded stone floor. The <em> loading </em>beeps of stalled connections and the low hum of conversation reverb through the high-ceilinged chamber.</p><p>This room is smaller than the airy foyer downstairs, a nave of sorts, in the heart of the monastery. It’s entirely windowless, walls marked only by smooth alcoves like this one, wide enough for a humanoid to comfortably meditate in. </p><p>Columns buttress the ceiling, carved with stone vines that curve delicately around them from rafters to floor. The floor is a mosaic in here, too--or was. Darker tiles--once black or indigo, now charcoal gray, interspersed with clusters of faint pinks and yellows, suggest some sort of starchart.</p><p>Hux drags the toe of his boot across a chipping constellation. A glance at his datapad shows his holomail is still loading. He taps on a pre-downloaded sitrep from Thyferra in the meantime, but the ground commander’s typical blunders don’t hold his attention.</p><p>He’s scattered, spread thin, swiping at the application for updates, gaze darting to the service bars at the top of the screen, to the officers beyond. </p><p>It’s barely been half an hour since Ren and the troopers were supposed to have landed, but it’s beyond unsettling to sit here effectively blind, a hundred klicks from the fight. It would be the same on the ship, of course, but without even a consistent uplink to the <em> Finalizer </em>, much less the comfortable hubbub of the bridge, the ground base is a dark island, useless and isolated.</p><p>Whatever.</p><p>Hux swipes at his datapad again. Two bars now, which is something.</p><p>If Ren doesn’t find a spot with reception out there, the ship will pick up <em> some </em> indicator, eventually.</p><p>Eventually.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>It takes four hours.</p><p>Hux has all but solved Thyferra--if the ground commander follows the letter of this plan of battle, the <em> Finalizer </em>won’t even have to waste a trip--and is walking the nave’s perimeter, trying to identify the star systems along its eastern wall.</p><p>“General?”</p><p> Hux pivots as if magnetized. “Captain.”</p><p>“New reading from Measurement and Signatures, sir,” Mitaka says, with two succinct taps at his datapad. He must have left his cap at his workstation, so he’s gripping the tablet’s edge too tightly instead. With another tap, he projects a thermal map into the space above it.</p><p>Hux thins his lips. The chart rolls through a slow motion recap of heat signatures at the drop zone coords--one hit apparently just after Ren’s projected landing, a second twenty minutes ago. Red splotches of blasterfire’s plasma radiation overlay the oranges of organic body heat.</p><p>The collection windows are spotty, given the storm systems that periodically move over the area, thick enough to mar the readings, but the trajectory is clear enough: a marginal increase in orange, at least as of twenty minutes ago. Since Hux hasn’t ordered any reinforcements, it must be the locals. Or the Resistance members they’re covertly sheltering.</p><p>“Keep it monitored,” Hux orders, without taking his eyes off the morphing shapes. “If we detect more than a three-percent increase in organic signatures, we’ll try to get a signal up to request two more infantry units.”</p><p>Mitaka dips his head, pinches the map closed. “Yes, sir.”</p><p>“Is there anything else to report?” Hux returns, trying not to sound too hopeful.</p><p>“Unfortunately not, General.”</p><p>“Try the comlinks again.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The comlinks don’t connect, of course.</p><p>Not at this check, or at the next half-hour mark, or the next.</p><p>“Dead line, sir,” reports Bolander, the comms officer, all three times. She also reports no planetary transmissions of any kind: blank scans from the <em> Finalizer </em>’s collection array.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Hux finally gets a signal from the ship steady enough to send the plan of battle directly to Thyferra. Ren won’t want to approve it; they discussed all but the finest points at the marathon meeting this alpha shift.</p><p>Hux loops the room, until the cool, dank air feels warm and stuffy, and he sheds his coat in his alcove.</p><p>He has a ration bar, since it’s 1800 hours standard time.</p><p>It’s the Vinnax system, he decides, there on the eastern edge of the nave.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“It’s up about one percent from the last reading, sir.” </p><p>Durbin, who’s filling in for Mitaka during what must be a caf break, nods to the newest update to the orange thermal mass 100 klicks north of here.</p><p>On top of the Celdaru system, on the south side of the room, Hux studies the projection. This might be the last reading for at least a couple of hours: A dense clump of clouds just passed over the ground base. It should block thermal scans of the combat zone within in an hour, at the current wind speeds.</p><p><em> This is ridiculous </em>, he absolutely cannot say to a subordinate, under any circumstances. </p><p>“Thank you,” has to suffice.</p><p>Durbin keeps briefing without any prompting; Mitaka must have prepared her well. She has a chemical scan that still shows standard blasterfire, at levels corresponding to the thermal scans. There was evidence of a single outgoing interplanetary transmission, but it failed to go through, and no content was collected.</p><p>Hux thanks Durbin and dismisses her. It’s 2035 standard time--around 1800 local, sunset in two hours--and this ground base has yet to serve a single purpose.</p><p>By 2130 standard, the connection to the ship is gone again. No cloud cover that can be detected from in here, or even on a visual inspection. (Bolander’s junior colleague took their caf break on the roof.)</p><p>Over the next hour and the next ten laps of the nave, Hux’s annoyance congeals into actual worry.</p><p>Ren has theatrics, his vanishings, but they <em> don’t </em> occur in the thick of combat. Even his tracker isn’t working at this distance. He’s as off-the-grid as he went with some of Snoke’s sessions, and he’s--as far as Hux last knew--not even relatively far away.</p><p>Surely he wouldn’t have been stupid enough to stay if something went wrong, if they were too badly outnumbered, if...</p><p>Regardless, after six hours of battle, his soldiers should be wearing out, even if he’s still buzzing on his firefight dopamine. Hux starts a message ordering reinforcements--full three units, total replacement of everyone currently on the ground--with his signal flickering between one and two bars.</p><p>With it wavering again, he isn’t expecting Mitaka’s breathless approach.</p><p>“General,” he says, all but skidding to a halt next to Hux, looping the empty edge of the room. </p><p>“Yes, Cap--”</p><p>“It’s stopped,” Mitaka starts, over-eager, then correct himself. “Sir. Apologies.”</p><p>Hux lowers his datapad. “What’s stopped?”</p><p>Mitaka’s already pulling up his map. “The plasma signature,” he says, as the thermal chart appears again. Its orange mass has shrunken by a third. No red overlays it. “We’ve gotten several readings in a row this way, sir.” </p><p>As if in confirmation, the datapad pings another one. The map updates, but the result is identical.</p><p>The sensor is working correctly: It’s picking up lower levels of heat perfectly--if there were any plasma, it would be recording it.</p><p>“Still no comms,” Hux says, no question in it.</p><p>Mitaka winces almost imperceptibly. “Another interplanetary transmission,” he says, “but it seems to have failed, or at least contained nothing, again. It could be some sort of automated beacon, sir. The Signals team can’t tell.”</p><p>Hux swallows a curse. He saves his draft order and dismisses Mitaka with a futile request to keep trying to contact the deployed units, and a more feasible order for Signals to get all the technical detail they can on the local frequency. He keeps walking, and his boots click hollowly on the cracked tiles. Anxiety wraps cold around his diaphragm.</p><p>The firefight has stopped, at least for now. The firefight has stopped, and the only entity in that area sending any comms right now is the local adversary. Whether it’s automated or not, it’s the only concrete <em> fact </em>there is to operate on.</p><p>It could be a ceasefire for the night. It could be a tactical retreat. In either case, Ren will be expecting reinforcements. But in which case, surely, he’ll send someone back into comms range to report.</p><p>Hux stops in his alcove, drapes his coat over his shoulders, to keep working on the reinforcements request.</p><p>They’ll be needed regardless. The fight <em> will </em>continue tomorrow, if it went on as long as it did today, whether in a ceasefire or a proper retreat or--</p><p>Or if there was a defeat.</p><p>If no comm or shuttle is on its way.</p><p>If backup units go down tomorrow, and find victorious locals--or even proper Resistance--sending out jubilant transmissions to their allies.</p><p>If the impossible has happened, and the <em> Finalizer-- </em> if the Order itself- <em> - </em>will roll to alpha shift without a Supreme Leader, or any of the troopers that went with him. </p><p>It could have been a grenade signature that vanished between sporadic scans. An unblocked blaster bolt. Overexertion. He could have <em> sensed </em>something in one of these Force sanctuaries and walked off a mesa and left his men to possibly the Resistance, he--</p><p>He’s been <em> better </em>, lately.</p><p>
  <em> Yes, but if he’s not, if there was an accident, if… </em>
</p><p>(If: This time tomorrow, Hux will have inherited his job title.)</p><p>Hux’s finger hovers over the reinforcements order’s <em> send </em> button. He turns the thought over once, twice, like a new-made alloy of unknown sturdiness. <em> (Don’t go there. Not yet.) </em></p><p>He tucks the ingot away and sends the request.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>It takes half an hour to go through, because of course it does. Just as soon, Hux announces to the officers that they’ll be relieved for the shift as soon as the replacements arrive. </p><p>A sigh of relief ripples across the workstations, but it’s a blip in Hux’s periphery.</p><p>The <em> not knowing </em>consumes him, anchors somewhere under his ribs. He’s swiping the inbox again, comming every device in the combat zone, at five-minute intervals. His coat slides off his shoulders. His spine digs into the back of the niche.</p><p>It’s agonizing, not thinking about it. (<em> If--) </em></p><p>But if it’s true, if it’s happened, this would be the easiest way. No effort, no careful plot. Just Ren and his foolhardiness. <em> (and whatever he thought he was compensating you for, or protecting you from, or--) </em></p><p>Hux rubs his temples. His datapad stares blank and dark up from his knees, the pale outline of his face reflected blurry in the nothingness. It’s barely zero hundred hours, but the exhaustion of waiting, of doing <em> nothing </em>, weighs at his muscles, at the edges of his brain.</p><p>He can’t sleep. Not here. He pinches his wrist for a stimulus.</p><p>Mitaka and the whole team rotate out by 0030 standard. The new analysts don’t require much briefing, and they have nothing to work with.</p><p>Nothing’s coming tonight.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Hux is reading the summary of an Expansion Region counterinsurgency analysis for the tenth time--the words make sense separately, but not in a row, not with <em> if if if </em>between each one--when his new briefer, a scanner named Tracht, materializes in front of the alcove.</p><p>“General Hux?”</p><p>Hux blinks up at him. “Yes.”<em> That was intelligent. </em>“Report, Commander,” he corrects.</p><p>“We’re picking up three transport shuttles approaching, five klicks from base, sir,” Tracht says, with only one glance at the datapad in his hand.</p><p>“The infantry reinforcements were to deploy directly to the drop zone.”</p><p>“They’re still mustering on the ship, sir,” Tracht replies. “These are approaching from the south.”</p><p>It’s...some remnant, at least, of Ren’s force.</p><p>Hux powers off his datapad. “Are we getting any comms from them?”</p><p>Tracht’s grimace is eloquent.</p><p>Hux continues before the officer can formulate a polite <em> no </em>. “Have two junior officers meet them outside once they’ve landed.” </p><p>“Yes, sir.”</p><p>“I’ll be downstairs shortly behind them.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>By the time Hux reaches the monastery’s anteroom, he’s wired again, strung taut with questions.</p><p>An entire team vanishes from all radar for ten hours, then all of its transports return at once, without notice, well into the night. If it’s a retreat, it isn’t tactical, it’s...complete. </p><p>Ren doesn’t <em> do </em>full retreat. And certainly not this quickly.</p><p>Hux picks a hangnail behind his back--gloves long stripped off--and tries not to pace the mosaic in here. It’s in even worse condition than the starchart. By the light filtering in through the open entrance, it looks like it was once a rendition of Teth’s landscape, but the color is fade, and the lighting is poor.</p><p>Hux and the cluster of officers that came down with him missed the thrum of the shuttles landing, but what must be their lighting systems casts a red glow into the entry hall, diluted by the white of moon and starlight. </p><p>The telltale clatter of plasteel armor echoes from the pavilion outside, and the first unit files into the cavernous room. Their white gear is smudged and bloodied, even in this light.</p><p>Row after row, clack of armor, thud of boots. Silence. They’ve been in action almost half a cycle, and still hold their rifles at precise angles. Assemble into formation with mathematical precision. </p><p>A part of Hux always wonders if it’s his own effect--if they’re this <em>perfect</em>--when he, the voice in all their heads, isn’t watching. But of course, they’re designed to be (of course, he <em>is </em>in their heads). They’d better be nothing less.</p><p>Three lines of infantry have entered and assembled before DL-3381’s red pauldron sticks out amid the sea of stained white. </p><p>Hux catches her attention before she’s fully inside--he has <em> questions </em>, she ought to have answers. Her helmet inclines toward him, acknowledgment--but immediately pivots behind her, as if in response to some other summons.</p><p>It’s out of line, it’s against protocol, unless--</p><p>A shadow appears behind her, stark against the reddish light.</p><p>The unspooling under Hux’s ribs could be relief or disappointment or simply the alleviation of doubt. He’s alive.</p><p>Ren seeks his gaze even faster than Hux caught DL-3381’s. He cuts through the filing troopers--they part in his wake--and Hux loops around them. He all but slams into Ren, and they both stop short.</p><p>Even in this light, the combat shows on Ren’s face. A crust of greenish enemy blood clings to his temple. A bruise blooms indigo on his jaw, vibrant against too-pale skin. His eyes, however, are bright, clear. He hasn’t hit his crash yet.</p><p>“Hux,” he says, just a hint breathless, gaze darting across Hux’s face, taking him in.</p><p>“Supreme Leader,” Hux returns, evenly, but immediately picks up, “I’ve called for reinforcements. They’re heading to the drop zone as we speak.”</p><p>Something like <em> amusement </em>pulls at the corner of Ren’s mouth. “No need.”</p><p>“I’m sorry?”</p><p>“There’s no need,” Ren repeats, with a glance back at the assembling units, “though some of them can rotate onto guard duty for the prisoners.”</p><p>Hux blinks. “Prisoners?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Ren confirms, holding his gaze, intent. “We won. They surrendered.”</p><p>Hux’s lips part. “That was…” he trails off, fumbling for verbiage, when Ren’s apparently knocked out an entire cell in <em> less than half a cycle </em>, when he’s been trying to process the fact that Ren might be dead, and he himself might have nothing to do with it. </p><p>“That was efficient,” he lands on.</p><p>Ren drags a hand through his hair, dips his chin briefly. Ignoring the compliment is as close to modest as he gets. “I would have commed,” he says, “but the comms situation is…”</p><p>“Abysmal,” Hux supplies.</p><p>“--not ideal,” Ren finishes, at the same time. His lips twitch again.</p><p>It’s so much easier when he’s like this, when he’s <em> on </em>and focused, and Hux can finish his sentences.</p><p>“Do you have Resistance captives still there?” Hux asks, filling the silence</p><p>“Not central Resistance,” Ren replies, undeterred, “but supporters. They’re slated for interrogation.”</p><p>“How many?”</p><p>“All of them.”</p><p>Hux’s brows draw together. “You fought a long time for it to be all of them.”</p><p>“All of them that were left,” Ren clarifies. “There were a thousand, but...They surrendered,” he repeats, with an almost boyish sort of pride.</p><p>He loves this. He does.</p><p>And the rush of victory has been one of the few points they’ve always been able to agree on. </p><p>Hux softens his tone. “Left after what, the worst of the fight?”</p><p>Ren searches his face for a long moment, then what’s unmistakably realization sparks in his gaze. “You haven’t been outside.”</p><p>“I...haven’t,” Hux agrees. </p><p>But before he can ask what the hell that has to do with <em> anything </em>, Ren’s nodding toward the entrance. “Come on.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The reddish glow is stronger the moment Hux steps out of the monastery. It tints the helmets of the troopers still clanking into the monastery and catches on the folded wings of the transports parked on the edge of the pavilion.</p><p>It isn’t coming from the shuttles.</p><p>Next to Hux, Ren nods upward. </p><p>Hux follows his gaze. And stops dead in the monastery’s thin shadow.</p><p>Amid the Wild Space constellations Hux grew up with hang five red streaks, high but clear, in the direction of the Core. He’d know them anywhere.</p><p>Hux’s breath snags in his throat. He knew this, cognitively. Knew that somewhere, for a long time--forever, in an infinite universe theory--the light from Starkiller would continue to travel.</p><p>Beyond its destruction, beyond the artificial new star at its coordinates, the light of the phantom energy would continue to burn through the void. He knew this. He simply never imagined seeing it.</p><p>It catches in the sharp, bare facets of the surrounding mesas, filling them as if with an inner light. It dims the light of three small moons, none near its full, even here, on the edge of known space.</p><p>At Hux’s side, a shadow stirs. Ren’s stopped next to him, eyes on the same new constellation.</p><p>“The clouds cleared off,” he says, quietly. “This must have been the first night it appeared here. I don’t know what the local beliefs are, but they kept yelling that it was the end of ages.”  He turns to Hux, holds his gaze. “They threw down their weapons.”</p><p>“That’s how it’s supposed to work,” Hux allows. </p><p>Peace-through-strength, et cetera. Ren’s heard it a hundred times, over the years. Believes it.</p><p>“You didn’t have to be there,” Ren continues, just as soft, but there it is: the last word on the ground base argument. </p><p>Of course.</p><p>Hux’s hands slip behind his back, reflexive parade rest. “We had no way of knowing that.”</p><p>“They kept bringing reinforcements,” Ren says, evenly. “I started to wonder how it was going to wind up, but…” He trails off, looking up again. “This was enough.”</p><p>Hux studies him in his periphery.</p><p> This is a back-handed sort of <em> I-told-you-so </em>.</p><p>Ren has to know that it’s a dangerous admission to make to the man you’re convinced wants you dead. That Ren himself, that his Force and his relics, were unnecessary to this particular victory. Proof-positive, perhaps, that the Supreme Leader could be dispensable.</p><p>It’s coalescing on the tip of Hux’s tongue, at least somewhat sardonic: <em> so my defunct superweapon and I don’t need you, after all. </em></p><p>But Ren’s gaze pivots as soon as his lips part, drawn not to the ghost of Starkiller, but the horizon, the farthest mesa. His eyes are keen but distant, that <em> listening </em>look again, as if trying to parse meaning from a fuzzy transmission.</p><p>
  <em> Damnit. </em>
</p><p>Not here, not when he’s just made a near concession against this sort of distraction.</p><p>(Not when his suite was a typhoon zone this morning.)</p><p>“Supreme Leader,” Hux snaps.</p><p>Ren blinks, turns back to him. “What?” he says, slowly, with genuine inflection.</p><p>“Still here?”</p><p>“Yes. I am, I…” He trails off, seeming to find his way back out of his skull. He glances back toward the five rays. “I meant to say I thought you’d want to see.”</p><p>Something in his voice, some small, young intonation, seeking appreciation, kills the sarcasm on Hux’s tongue.</p><p>“Of course,” Hux agrees, quietly. “Thank you.”</p><p>“Sure.”</p><p>The light mutes Ren’s bruise, catches in his barely-tamed hair.</p><p>They’ve won, and he’s <em> here, </em>and he’s offered the kind of concession that makes him sound sane again.</p><p>While it lasts, Hux stands next to him.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chamber</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>No additional content warnings for this chapter!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>(now)</b>
</p><p>
  <span>“Any preference?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the predawn gray, snow clings to the hulls and viewports of every ship on the slab. Bonadan City’s public-use spaceport is technically open for business, but at sunrise, the morning after the first snow of the season, it’s all but deserted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ideal conditions, honestly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(If not for the fact that snow-covered transports mean obscured makes and models.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(And on top of that, the biting wind.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux pulls his cloak tighter around his shoulders as he turns to Ren, beside him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Low-hanging fruit,” he replies, tersely. “We need to make this quick.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Only Ren’s curled lip says, </span>
  <em>
    <span>“no shit</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” which should be a sign he’s on his best behavior. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the trouble is, he’s been like this the whole morning: less taciturn than </span>
  <em>
    <span>muted</span>
  </em>
  <span>. His expressions are heavy, his tone flat—not with his dry humor, but something simply </span>
  <em>
    <span>empty</span>
  </em>
  <span>, as if every word were scraping at the bottom of a disused cistern, stirring dust, cracking clay, finding no water.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux hasn’t seen him this way in years, since he’d return from Snoke’s training a black-robed husk. If you tore away the drapery, it was easy to imagine you’d find only empty air.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s solid enough now, but only just.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His gaze roves from Hux to the opposite row of parked shuttles. When he walks toward it, rounding the piles of slush left by a hover plow, Hux has no choice but to follow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The plows cleared single file walkways between the rows of parked spacecraft, trimming the snow with jagged heaps of slurry, flecked with black dirt. Turquoise icemelt crystals crunch underfoot, but seem to have done their job: the duracrete slab is wet, but not slippery. Still, Hux doesn’t mind that Ren’s testing the path ahead of him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren hasn’t exactly </span>
  <em>
    <span>deferred </span>
  </em>
  <span>to Hux for most of the morning, but ever since Hux shook him awake at 0530 and said, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>We ought to get moving before it’s full light</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” he’s accepted Hux’s expertise at navigating the outskirts of Bonadan City.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he certainly couldn’t object to the stop at the housing park auto-teller, nor a withdrawal of two thousand hard, untraceable credits. They rattle softly with every step, even through the fabric of the pouch they’re stowed in, inside the duffel on Hux’s shoulder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s laden, too, with the last of Hux’s food and personal supplies, the handful of articles that comprise his wardrobe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren’s still in the same battered jacket; he apparently doesn’t possess more than what can fit in its various pockets.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>I travel light</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” he’d said, and it should have sounded more smug, when Hux had questioned whether he needed to make a supply stop before the spaceport. It had only confirmed that he’s as destitute as he looks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think that’s a 690 up ahead.” Ren’s voice comes hollow, only partially over his shoulder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where?” Hux returns, scanning the row of white-dusted ships. They’re all more or less shapeless, especially in the half-light.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Two o’clock.” The back of Ren’s head moves minutely to the right.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux follows his trajectory. The freighter fits their implicit specifications: hyperdrive-equipped, light enough for a crew of two, old enough for a manual, overridable lock system. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Its narrow, flat hull sits low to the duracrete, its bow framed by cylindrical nacelles housing ion engines. A single turret-mounted laser cannon juts from its roof, snow piled five centimeters high on the barrel.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’ll have to scrape it to get to the hatch,” Hux points out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’ll have to scrape anything that’s out here,” Ren replies, over the squelch of their footsteps. “It’s just whether or not the locks are frozen.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux shivers against a blast of wind, funneled between the sides of the shuttles, holds his hood in place over his head. “We’ll see.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The hood blocks his periphery like blinders, but he’s trying to compensate for it with periodic glances left and right, extra attentiveness for footsteps that aren’t Ren’s or his own. His pistol is heavy, fully charged and tucked into his waistband. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The goal is to hotwire a ship and get off the ground without having to fire it, but that seems less realistic by the step. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux hasn’t felt this </span>
  <em>
    <span>exposed</span>
  </em>
  <span> in the past six months. Spaceport security is light at this hour—and in this weather—but he and Ren are sitting targets, meandering through the rows of shuttles. Every darkened viewport feels like a probing eye. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And with daybreak approaching, they’ll soon no longer even have this much cover. The horizon glows like an ember in the distance, a red rent beneath the gray clouds.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Whether Ren’s actively conscious of this or not, he’s moving at his usual clip, the one only Hux can match, gaze trained on the freighter ahead. He made it clear last night--or well, earlier this morning, technically speaking--that he thinks there’s little time to waste in getting back to the fleet (or </span>
  <em>
    <span>looking for </span>
  </em>
  <span>the fleet).</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just a cycle late, and they could find nothing of a Star Destroyer but debris, floating charred and dead between worlds.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>If you found </span>
  </em>
  <span>anything--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux aborts the thought like a bad transmission. One moment deafening static, dizzying pixels; the next, dead air.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He should be clocking in at the plant right now. He’d be pulling his mask down and revving up the conveyor belt. Looping his shopping list through his brain for lack of anything more important to worry about.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You could still turn back, you don’t have to do this, not with him, not in the cold, not in the wind, not at oh six hundred hours and one patrol unit away from arrest--</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Looks sturdy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren slaps the side of the Ghtroc 690 before Hux has stopped moving, sending a light shower of snowflakes onto the duracrete. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hopefully not too sturdy,” Hux replies, with a glance over his shoulder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The row shows nothing but vacant, snow-capped ships, the morning light starting to catch in their hulls. Still clear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anxiety knots the pit of Hux’s stomach, nonetheless.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Security is going to find you, and you won’t have the documentation for this ship, and they will detain you, and run your biometrics, and--</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux adjusts his hood, follows Ren around the freighter’s port side toward the aft hatch. They’ll at least be somewhat concealed by the angled escape pod tubes at the stern while Ren works. He’s already reaching inside his jacket for the conductor tool he says will fry the security system.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Another gust of wind tunnels between the ships, and Hux holds the hood in place. Ren removes his hand from his jacket, empty, to swipe his hair out of his eyes, then immediately slips it back in. He extracts a small metal rod, gold in color, with a flat head. He twirls it between his fingers like it’s the lightsaber he apparently lost along the way here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux glances at the hatch’s entry control pad, holds out his hand. “Shall I?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve got it,” Ren replies, stepping toward the shuttle.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Have you?” Hux doesn’t have to nod to Ren’s right sleeve.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren’s lip twitches smugly. “Since I have slightly more experience.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“In illegal activity,” Hux mutters.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And lightspeed-capable vessels,” Ren says, closing the distance toward the hatch and putting his back to Hux. “Generally.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He has a point. The entire TIE silencer was Hux’s prototype, Sienar-Jaemus’ execution, and Ren’s long inventory of personal tweaks. (Hux’s mechanical obsessions tended to aim for much higher body counts than a single cannon blast.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nonetheless, Hux looks at the clouds, then back at Ren. “Whatever. I’ll...stand watch.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you,” Ren says, without looking up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux sighs and turns his back, angling himself to block any passer-by’s view of the control pad as much as possible. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>As Ren’s tool clicks against the metal, the wind blows into Hux’s face, stinging his lips numb, eyes watery. He keeps one hand on the hood, as much for physical shielding as for concealment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He scans left down the row, then right, twice at intervals, then paces to the shuttle’s port and starboard sides to peer down for movement from the shuttle’s fore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Everything but the snow is still. The wind lifts it in eddies, scattering them across the narrow lines of cleared duracrete.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>From behind, Ren swears quietly in a language Hux doesn’t know. His pick clinks against the ship’s siding.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux risks a glance over his shoulder. “How’s it coming?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If it’s going to take all morning, I can certainly intervene.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You--” Ren huffs. The control pad chimes a low </span>
  <em>
    <span>error</span>
  </em>
  <span> tone. “--need to stand guard. You have the blaster.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux turns back around to scan the aisle, squinting against a fresh gust. “Happy to make a temporary trade,” he replies.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you sure you want to do that right now?” Ren says, dry, but through gritted teeth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux rolls his eyes. The threat is as close as Ren’s gotten to a sense of humor in close to a year.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The </span>
  <em>
    <span>error </span>
  </em>
  <span>tone rings out again, louder, dual-frequency.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah, yes.” Hux pops his lips. “Inconspicuous.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren says nothing, which is as good as </span>
  <em>
    <span>shut the fuck up.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux paces to check the shuttle’s sides again. No movement from the row behind, nor the YV and Barloz-classes on either side. He exhales relief, loops back to his position at Ren’s six o’clock.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He glances right, down the row, then left, toward the spaceport’s duracrete terminal building. Three transports away, a thin figure in a knit hat navigates the thread of the walkway. A badge gleams silver on their chest; a blaster hangs at their belt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux’s pulse picks up. “Shit,” he breathes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The tool’s clicks stop; Ren’s hand must have frozen. “Shit, what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Security’s coming.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck,” Ren says, under his breath, as if that would keep it out of Hux’s earshot. “Stall them,” he continues, louder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux keeps his eyes on the approaching figure: a Duro, by the oversized bloodred eyes, the cobalt skin. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The order rankles. Ren and his Force shouldn’t have a problem convincing them there’s nothing untoward happening here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux chafes at his arms. “Can’t you just tell them to--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Ren interrupts, with a loud clank of the pick. “No, I </span>
  <em>
    <span>can’t</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux draws an absolute blank for one heartbeat too long, before the entire reason he’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>here</span>
  </em>
  <span>, about to pilot a stolen light freighter to some backwater called Bosthirda, reassembles.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Right. </span>
  </em>
  <span>No more Force, at least for the moment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux thins his lips.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This is going to be difficult to get used to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Something twists under Hux’s sternum. </span>
  <em>
    <span>(Imagine how it was for him.)</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux shakes off the thought. The guard is rapidly approaching.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> “Have you </span>
  <em>
    <span>tried it</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” Hux asks, low.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What do you think.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux bites back something equally deadpan. Prods instead: “And it didn’t work at all?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why do you think I lost my--” Ren stops abruptly. In Hux’s periphery, his gaze is shuttered, trained solely on the control pad.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your hand?” Hux whispers. “That’s how you lost it?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren is silent. The pick rasps against the durasteel. “Just fucking stall them,” he says, low.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux would press, but he’ll have the entire flight to Bosthirda to extract information, and the Duro is within three meters now, massive red eyes trained on Hux.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Morning, gentlemen,” they call.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux’s diplomatic training spreads a tame smile across his mouth. “Good morning, Officer.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Something like a snort resounds from behind Hux. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>What,” </span>
  </em>
  <span>he bites off, over his shoulder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you sound like that all the time?” Ren whispers back, dry.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux hardly realized he’d slipped back into the Core accent he’s been perfecting for six months. (Ren apparently brought out the dormant natural.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you want to handle this,” Hux hisses, “since you sound like such a local?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m busy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux sucks in an impatient inhale.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The only thing that keeps a snide retort off the tip of his tongue is the Duro’s approach.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Trouble with your hatch?” they ask, insect eyes roving from Ren’s back to Hux’s face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux shifts minutely to better obscure the hatch as they come to a stop.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The badge on their overcoat is emblazoned with the AndTec company logo: lightning bolt and binary string. They adjust a gray scarf against the exposed blue skin of their neck. Hux doesn’t recognize the model of the blaster at their hip, but it’s set to stun, by the look of it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Hux says, trying to turn his smile sheepish, “unfortunately. She’s rather cantankerous in extreme temperatures.” Hux gestures to the escape pod mounted next to him, means the ship entire.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah.” The Duro nods, but they keep scanning the hatch, pupil-less gaze inscrutable. “I’m happy to send a mech over to take a look. I’d just need to see your all’s cred docs.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The knot in Hux’s stomach freezes into place. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>It’s fine. </span>
  </em>
  <span>It’s fine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We have it covered,” he replies, with his best attempt at the same smile. “No need to trouble yourself.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The guard’s lipless mouth quirks upward into a thin, unreadable slash. “Are you sure? They’ve got de-icer up in the workshop.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Their expression is blank--face unlined, gaze flat. It’s impossible to tell if the offer is a ruse. If they suspect something, or if they recognize the heavy-duty conductor in Ren’s hand as a blunt slicing tool.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Regardless, Hux stalls.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’ve almost got it, truly. It’s more of a wiring quirk.” Hux resists the unproductive urge to assume parade rest. “You know how these old models can be.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Duro tilts their head minutely. “I do know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Behind Hux, the error alert chimes again: three times in sequence, like a klaxon.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>For fuck’s sake.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>To Ren’s credit, he doesn’t curse at it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Duro’s forehead creases. “It normally does that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux gives the cool grimace he perfected over countless arms deals. “Whenever the locks freeze over, I’m afraid.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>We can go no higher than five hundred mill, I’m afraid.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>We’ll need delivery a bit sooner, I’m afraid.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“I see,” the guard says, more pensive than they’ve sounded so far. “I’ll check back in in a few minutes. If you gentlemen change your minds.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux stiffens his hand at his side. “Much appreciated.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Duro nods, casts them both a final blank glance, then turns to continue their round.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux adjusts his hood, remains as he was. No sudden movements or suspicious conferring. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How’s it coming?” he says, low.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Great,” Ren retorts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It didn’t sound great a few seconds ago.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>coming</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” The conductor clangs against the durasteel hull. “Just stall them again whenever they come back.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was hoping we’d have broken atmo by then.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We won’t have if you keep distracting me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux stares resolutely at the cargo freighter across the row. The sunrise ignites the snow on its rooftop. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can take a look,” he offers, and it emerges only somewhat singsong.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The control pad chirps. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve got it,” Ren says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course you do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux loops only once to either side of the shuttle in the next few minutes; the main threat is from the shuttle’s near side. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The wind skitters snow across transport roof’s and into Hux’s face. The sunlight stabs through the gap in the clouds, blinding. At least the hood provides some level of shade, even if he has to hold it just-so to see more of the row of spacecraft than gray shadows and neon floaters as his eyes adjust.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren mutters twice at the control pad, single inaudible syllables, but remains otherwise silent. It’s a taciturn frustration, and if Hux knows him, all the more perilous for it. (Force available or not.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The security system doesn’t shriek again, but the error pings continue at intervals, until the conductor rod scrapes the metal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey,” Ren bites off. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” Hux scans the row. Clear for the moment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come hold this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux turns to face him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A meter and a half behind, Ren is a dark silhouette against the ship’s carbon-scored hull. He partially blocks view of the control pad, but its casing has been pried off, exposing a tangle of wires against a charred motherboard.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought you wanted me to stand watch.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I need you to hold this cord while I cut it,” Ren says, each word like a glass bead, strung along.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux sighs. Throws another glance over his shoulder. </span>
  <em>
    <span>It’s fine, it’s fine, all </span>
  </em>
  <span>clear--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Which cord?” he asks, heading toward the ship.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren steps enough aside for Hux to examine it. Up close, the control pad’s plasteel covering--the </span>
  <em>
    <span>pad </span>
  </em>
  <span>part--has been more or less wrenched off. It hangs twisted from the side by a single hinge. A row of red and yellow lights blink inside the box.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren reaches in, delicate with his bony fingers. Whatever got rid of the scar on his face, it didn’t affect his hand: two whitish commas show out in the morning light, the bites of wild sparks from the hand and the saber that are no longer here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren pinches a thin black cable connected to an eight-pin slot. “Here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux makes no move to take it from him. “The power supply?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren’s lip curls. “Very good.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What happened to frying it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I fried the alarm and the release mechanism.” Ren points with his thumb to a blackened port near the top of the motherboard. “The power source will kill the whole system and open it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So then it won’t shut,” Hux surmises.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Ren replies, terse, “we should be able to secure it from inside.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux considers. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Obviously. </span>
  </em>
  <span>“I suppose it is old enough for a manual control.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren says nothing, looks expectantly from Hux to the cable.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux flexes his gloved fingers, reaches for the cord. Ren lets go nearly as soon as he’s taken it, swipes his hair out of his face, and scrabbles into his jacket again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What he extracts is an Imperial model monomolecular dagger, its plast haft cracked down the side.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With the ship powered down, there will be a minimal charge flowing to the power supply, if any, but Hux tenses anyway. He’s holding it with his left hand; if it should happen to explode, at least he’ll still be better off than Ren.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pull it taut.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am</span>
  <em>
    <span>.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren sighs, and the exhale fogs the air. He lifts the knife, slides its chipped point under the cord.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux’s shoulders are tight as grappling wire. He holds the cord steady.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Gentlemen?”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Fuck.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux whirls toward the sound of the guard’s voice, finger slipping out from beneath the cord.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Duro stands behind them, their hand not touching, but certainly in proximity to, the blaster on their belt. The wind teases their scarf’s tassels against their black armored vest. The scarf is no obstacle; they’re still vulnerable above the shoulders. The pistol weighs heavy under Hux’s cloak,concealed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux smiles. “Officer?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Beside him, Ren’s turned as well. He shifts slightly to cover the security panel’s exposed innards. His hand drops to his side; the knife fills the space between his leg and Hux’s. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you usually have to dismantle the security system when the hatch has frozen?” they ask, suspicion evident even through the Duran monotone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Unfortunately.” Hux spreads his hands. “It’s the wiring that ices so badly.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Duro’s red gaze drops to the dagger. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Quickest way to get through it,” Ren explains, addressing them for the first time. “It’s a real pain to reinstall, but, hey. What are you gonna do.” He bumps the sealed hatch with his elbow, some pantomime of pilot’s affection.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the guard appears to consider this, examining Ren’s face, rather than trying to probe between them to assess the damages to the control pad. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren’s always underestimated his own capacity for diplomatic bullshit. Now, with no powers, no saber, and no army to fall back on, he’s perhaps been forced to hone it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Duro’s mouth thins further. “You don’t mind if I take a look at your cred docs, do you? Just standard procedure. I’m sure you’d want me to check if I saw someone taking apart your ship.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Their tone remains inscrutable, but it dials up Hux’s pulse nonetheless. He keeps his smile, and doesn’t risk a glance at Ren. Ren may be able to bullshit, but Hux has reason not to trust his sabacc face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course,” Hux says. He makes a brief show of patting his trousers pocket, then pulls his brows into what might be an apologetic expression. “Ah, damn it.” He looks back up, maintaining the facade. “I’m afraid they are </span>
  <em>
    <span>in </span>
  </em>
  <span>the shuttle.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren snorts indignation beside him. “You left them in the shuttle?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux turns toward him pointedly, enunciates each word like cutting steel. “Yes, </span>
  <em>
    <span>we </span>
  </em>
  <span>did.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Unbelievable,” Ren says, shaking his head once, exasperated. He </span>
  <em>
    <span>can </span>
  </em>
  <span>bullshit. “Unfuckingbelievable.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The guard spares Hux conjuring an equally peeved response. (Though it wouldn’t have taken much effort, at this point.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know that’s a violation,” they drawl. “You’re supposed to have a copy on and off board.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We do know,” Ren cuts in. His gaze is heavy in the corner of Hux’s eye.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But with the storm coming on last night,”  Hux supplies, “we must have left them in our hurry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Duro’s hand moves, and Hux’s twitches reflexively toward his pistol.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the guard’s slips not to their belt, but to a vest pocket. They pull out a small datapad. “I’d ordinarily have to cite you for that, but I’ll let you off with a warning, given the weather.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you,” Hux says, with a mild dip of his chin. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It grates, of course--the deference to some minimum-wage company cop, when you’ve shattered worlds with a single command--but not like it did six months ago. The wound hasn’t healed, but it’s gone numb enough to live with.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure,” the guard replies, blandly. They tap their datapad screen and meet Hux’s eyes again. “I’ll just need your landing code to check the system.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux scoffs. “This is ridiculous. It’s our own ship.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Duro’s gaze doesn’t waver. “It’s standard procedure, sir.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Sir </span>
  </em>
  <span>is more like it, but still doesn’t fix this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren stirs next to him, the lightest nudge with his elbow. “Are you sure you don’t have the cred docs on you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux is fairly certain he’s the only person in the galaxy who could detect the hitch in Ren’s voice before </span>
  <em>
    <span>on you</span>
  </em>
  <span>, the flash of focus to the invisible outline of the DL-18, under his cloak.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I--” Hux starts, holds Ren’s gaze.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Surely he can read </span>
  <em>
    <span>fuck no </span>
  </em>
  <span>in Hux’s frantic glance. Can read </span>
  <em>
    <span>oh yes, we should certainly leave a trail of bodies behind our stolen shuttle, you’re brilliant, why aren’t you running the damn galax--</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Perhaps you should check,” Ren returns, as cold as if he heard and transcribed every word.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux’s fingers curl at his side. “I think that would be counterproductive.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you don’t have the landing code--” the guard starts, moving to tuck away their datapad.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’ve got the docs,” Ren interrupts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux raises his eyebrows. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“You’ve </span>
  </em>
  <span>got the docs, apparently.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Check your pocket.” Ren’s gaze flickers, opaque, to the gaping panel behind him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s no need for that,” Hux replies, crisply. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Yet </span>
  </em>
  <span>hangs after like a thermal charge; the pin only needs pulling.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Check your pocket,” Ren repeats.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The guard’s face hardens. “Just give me your landing codes, gentlemen.” They slip the datapad back into their vest; their spidery hand hovers at their belt, mere centimeters from their pistol. “Assuming you have them?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux grimaces. “Also on board.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We only required your standard callsign.” The Duro’s thumb brushes the haft of their blaster.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m under no obligation to repeat that to you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you refuse to do so, I will have no choice but to treat this as attempted theft.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It takes no great effort for Hux to force his voice shrill. “This is absolutely absurd. We aren’t stealing our own ship, and don’t need to prove that to you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The guard sneers, or as close as a Duro’s face can get to it. “Well, it looks exactly as if you’re hot-wiring it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux’s heart batters his ribs. He knew this was going to happen. He knew. Sooner or later, they’d be caught, arrested, brought to justice at the end of a blaster or a syringe. He fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>knew.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>(He just hoped they’d at least make it off-world first.)</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You knew this would happen, you </span>
  </em>
  <span>knew--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A shadow wavers in Hux’s periphery.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t move,” barks the Duro. Their gaze is trained on the knife glittering in Ren’s hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren must have made to turn around again. Let Hux handle public relations while he keeps slicing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren says nothing in response, but at least freezes as ordered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux shudders against another blast of wind. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’ll be faster on the draw than the guard; their posture makes it clear they’ve never seen combat. He can have them dead on the duracrete before they’ve so much as cocked their blaster, much less attempted to stun him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No need for </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Hux says, feigning as much defensiveness as he can conjure on Ren’s behalf. “I might have our docs on my datapad. Allow me to check.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Duro’s eyes narrow, the tightening of the cobalt skin hardly perceptible. Their right hand stays by their holster; their left rises to an earpiece. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This is Patrol Five One Six,” they murmur, “request backup for escalating situation.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Fuck fuck fuck fuck--</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux makes sure to furrow his brow, but Ren speaks first.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Backup for what?” he asks, sounding as bemused as Hux hopes he looks. “There’s no escalation.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“There’s no escalation,” </span>
  </em>
  <span>the Duro should parrot back, some of their compound eyes’ facets dimmed. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“There’s no escalation. I will let you go in peace.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux halfway expects it, halfway awaits it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the seconds pass, and the Duro makes no gesture of deference, echoes none of it. Their gaze remains bright, if shallow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The fact of it hits Hux like a cannon blast:</span>
  <em>
    <span> Ren has no power.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s the best possible evidence that the Force has left him, or at least he’s blind or deaf to it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren has no power.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux might have appreciated it under safer circumstances, but with reinforcements called and his exit options dwindling, the Force would be, if not a whetted tool, an effective blunt instrument.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His blood stampedes in his ears. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Draw it, end them, better to leave a trail of corpses than wind up as one, do it, do it fast--</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux holds the Duro’s gaze, smiles delicately. “If I could simply take out my datapad, I could retrieve our landing codes. We’re always scrambling them between stops. I don’t want to give you the wrong one and wind up in binders.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The guard’s jaw clenches; they look Hux up and down, from well-worn officer’s boots to ratty hood. They press the earpiece again. “Belay that request. Stand by.” They nod to Hux, and their hand drops back toward their blaster. “Go on, then.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux’s fingers are steady, despite the roaring in his ears. It isn’t the shooting that bothers him; it’s the burgeoning daylight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But no matter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just let me see here…” Hux says, slipping his hand under his cloak, then his untucked button-down. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His hand closes on the pistol’s grip, cold through his glove’s thin coarseweave. He slides his finger up the haft to the safety. Flicks it </span>
  <em>
    <span>off</span>
  </em>
  <span>, noiseless. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A flash of calculation telegraphs his next movements: draw, chamber, aim, fire. In under three seconds, a charhole will have opened between the Duro’s eyes. They’ll be on their back on the duracrete, the wind still teasing their scarf.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In under three seconds, he and Ren will be as free as possible.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He pulls on the blaster.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the barrel hasn’t left his waistband when a dark blur ripples in his periphery.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Ren, what--</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>A lock snicks. Metal grates against itself. Catches hiss, hydraulic.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Credentials recognized,” </span>
  </em>
  <span>a mechanical voice announces. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Access granted. Credentials rec--”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux’s hand freezes, but doesn’t leave the blaster. He turns.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mere centimeters behind him, the ship’s hatch gapes open into darkness. The control pad flashes crazily, haywire clusters of green and green.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The guard’s hand flies to their belt, focus now returned to Ren. “I told you not to m--”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>What the fuck is he </span>
  </em>
  <span>thinking</span>
  <em>
    <span>--</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux manages to keep his smile. “Finally,” he says. “I thought it would never thaw.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m still going to need your--”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Credentials recognized.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“There you are.” Hux nods toward the panel, and doesn’t give them the chance to insist. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren’s already half-boarded, one foot on the low step that extended down when the hatch opened. He’s inside in a heartbeat. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux follows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Two steps, and he’s out of the wind, blinking in the ship’s dark hold. The air reeks of tabac and an herb he doesn’t recognize. He presses against the panel beside the open hatch, cover against blasterfire.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey--” The guard’s voice sounds far away through the durasteel.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>On the other side of the hatch, Ren gropes along the wall for a control switch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Shit,” </span>
  </em>
  <span>he hisses. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Shit.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hurry up.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know about these private security--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck.” Metal squeaks. “There.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sheet of the hatch grinds back into motion, deepening the shadows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Stop</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” resounds from outside.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The blue rings of a stun blast whistle through the closing gap, dissolve into the darkness.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Damnit.” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Hux draws and cocks the pistol in a single fluid motion. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He aims. The guard’s armored vest is a black blot in the closing sliver of the hatch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He should have done this outside, before they had the threat of a </span>
  <em>
    <span>witness</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His finger rests on the trigger—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The hatch clangs shut. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Outside, a second stun blast shrieks muted toward the hull. Hits it with a fizzling sound.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren reaches for a red lever above the hatch. “Get to the cockpit,” he barks, strained.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux is already gone.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Frost laces across the cockpit’s viewport, but it’s the least of Hux’s worries.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Adrenaline frissons through his hands, wires them tense as he jabs at the shuttle’s controls. Fortunately, the 690’s external security system is linked to its internal access codes: the readouts loaded at a touch to the power switch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>All he has to do is get the damn thing off the ground and into hyperspace before AndTec’s security corps blows them out of the sky. The planet has no shielding, little in the way of departure clearances. It should be easy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It would be </span>
  <em>
    <span>easier</span>
  </em>
  <span> if he’d flown anything but a simplified escape pod in the past fifteen years.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He scans the control display hovering above the dash, green lines stark against the white of the frost.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“All right,” he inhales. “All right,” and swipes the shuttle out of </span>
  <em>
    <span>park.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Its thrusters rev, hum comfortably in the soles of Hux’s boots, buzz in his inner ears.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck, are you gonna pull up?” Ren all but collapses into the co-pilot’s chair, tapping at his own displays left-handed before he’s fully sat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Hux shoots back. “Yes, I’m working on it.” He grabs the yoke and yanks it toward himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His stomach swoops as the shuttle angles harshly upward. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren flinches in his periphery. Curses in whichever language that is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shut up,” Hux says. His knuckles ache with his grip on the yoke. “You asked for this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren says nothing, and Hux focuses on keeping the shuttle’s trajectory below ninety degrees.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The ship is like a wild animal to tame, a mind and will to be submitted to his own. It thrums under his grip. If he loosens his hold, if he breaks his focus, it will squirm out of his grasp.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The thrusters roar.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He can’t fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>see.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Not that there will be much out the viewport but swelling gray clouds, but--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Get the defrosters,” he orders.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m getting us off the grid first,” Ren replies, jaw audibly tight. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t see a damn thing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let me wipe the registration data. And cut the comms.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux risks a glance at the navicomp readouts. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>81 klicks to open space. To hyperspace.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The ship chugs blindly into the atmosphere, speed ticking higher every second.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“One-sixty is all right in this?” Hux verifies.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Faster,” Ren replies, voice still strung tight. “Okay. There.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A soft rushing sound fills the cockpit. A transparent strip begins to clear at the bottom of the viewport.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux dips his head to see through it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Only clouds, of course, but helps to be able to register something outside the shuttle.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The velocity display flares from green to red. A low beep resounds. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Warning.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s--” Hux glances at it. “Two hundred.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can see it,” Ren replies. His fingers are probably drumming restlessly at the armrest. He doesn’t just </span>
  <em>
    <span>think</span>
  </em>
  <span> he ought to be flying this thing; he </span>
  <em>
    <span>ought </span>
  </em>
  <span>to be flying it. “Faster,” he orders.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The system--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ignore it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The display chimes louder, but Hux manages to tune it out. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The viewport is clearing, the thrusters singing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sixty klicks to space.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The shuttle’s prow parts the clouds; they enfold the viewport like a gray wool blindfold. Velocity accelerates.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fifty klicks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Forty.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll jump it to lightspeed as soon as we’re clear,” Ren says, mostly to his controls.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux nods. His pulse throbs in his fingers. He pulls up as the velocity plateaus.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The shuttle judders. His duffel slides in the floorboard, slams into Ren’s chair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What the hell?” Ren says, and must mean, </span>
  <em>
    <span>I would toss you out of that seat if I were physically capable</span>
  </em>
  <span>. ”Keep it steady.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Keep your fucking mouth shut, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Hux bites back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He suffices to grip the yoke tighter. To </span>
  <em>
    <span>focus.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The positional data reads twenty klicks until they break atmo. Projectile scanners are clear, and the frost has dissipated.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fifteen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ten.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux can’t look down at Bonadan, back at the past five months of quiet boredom--of </span>
  <em>
    <span>safety, of anonymity, you can still turn this thing around---</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He can’t.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He can’t look back, and down is nothing but a haze of gray.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Five klicks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bonadan’s exosphere ignites around the shuttle, a halo of pink and orange, brighter than the dawn. The thrusters whine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux’s jaw aches where he’s locked it. The motivator buzzes in his teeth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren had better--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ready,” Ren reports. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux can’t risk a glance at him to confirm that his hand is on the speed-shift. He keeps his gaze ahead, squinting into the aurora.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The ship is going to ignite, combust, disintegrate--</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The sublight positional tracker blinks from kilometers to meters.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eight hundred.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Six hundred.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The atmosphere flares to white outside. The motivator shrieks.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Fuck--</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>For a split second, Bonadan hangs below the transparisteel like a yellow topaz, fogged with shreds of cloud and factory smoke. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>For a split second, it looks small. (Everything does, from a hundred klicks up.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The speed-shift clicks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Corporate Sector constellations smear momentarily to white lines.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux’s stomach drops through the floorboard.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hyperspace twists blue-white around the transparisteel. The motivator thrums both faster and softer at lightspeed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux releases a breath, and tension uncoils from around his shoulders, his ribs, his insides. His hands quiver as he releases the yoke, adrenaline draining as rapidly as it surged. He inhales like a drag of spice. Punches the shuttle into autopilot.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Whirls on Ren as soon as the facts set in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why did you do that?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren has the audacity to blink, apparently having to tear his eyes away from the swirl of hyperspace. “Do what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knows damn well what.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux thins his lips, taps his fingers on the armrest. “Tell me to shoot that guard, then make a move before I could.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I gathered you didn’t want to shoot the guard,” Ren retorts. The flicker of anger shouldn’t be comforting, but after the </span>
  <em>
    <span>blankness </span>
  </em>
  <span>so far this morning, it’s almost welcome. “I thought you were still stalling.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I </span>
  <em>
    <span>didn’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>want to shoot the guard,” Hux agrees, “but then I realized it would be necessary. Now we have a witness.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren snorts. “Then you should’ve shot faster.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux rubs his temple. He’s too fucking exhausted for this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For Ren.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With whom he’s now trapped in the galaxy’s smallest shuttle.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>(you’re trapped with him, you’re stuck, how could you go back to--)</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“I just told you I wanted to avoid starting this with a trail of bodies,” Hux bites off. “Of course I put it off. But the moment their hand went toward that blaster, they decided they were witnessing a crime. Which they should not have been allowed to do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They’ll report, what? A guy in a hood with a shitty Core accent, and a guy with one hand?” Ren replies, dripping his usual sarcasm. “Whom they can’t track?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux stiffens against the worn leather. “It’s still a fair bit to go on.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not when we’re leaving the sector.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It takes every subatomic quark of Hux’s willpower not to roll his eyes. “Because no one on Bonadan </span>
  <em>
    <span>ever</span>
  </em>
  <span> communicates with anyone outside the sector.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because it’s one theft,” Ren says, sharper now, “and the galaxy has bigger problems right now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It still puts us on </span>
  <em>
    <span>someone</span>
  </em>
  <span>’s wanted list,” Hux counters.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It isn’t like we can do this invisibly.” Ren’s eyes go flinty, obsidian in the shadows out the viewport. “You’re aware of the risks. If you’re so terrified of being noticed, then why did you come?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux scoffs. Ren is </span>
  <em>
    <span>not </span>
  </em>
  <span>going here, he is </span>
  <em>
    <span>not. </span>
  </em>
  <span>“You wanted me to come.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not if you’re going to panic every time we have to do something drastic.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Everything Ren has ever done in his life has been drastic. </span>
  <em>
    <span>(And you know that, you knew that when you woke him up two hours ago, you know--)</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>And Ren isn’t about to insult Hux’s ability to cope with it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux’s fingers work into the armrest. </span>
  <em>
    <span>(trapped, you’re trapped, how could you be so--)</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>His volume ticks up of its own accord</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you </span>
  <em>
    <span>see </span>
  </em>
  <span>me </span>
  <em>
    <span>panic</span>
  </em>
  <span> back there?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren looks at him, somewhere between smug and actually level. “You’re panicking now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You couldn’t tell if I were,” Hux retorts. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Not anymore.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s a low blow--on a subject that’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>clearly </span>
  </em>
  <span>sensitive--but Ren rolls with it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can tell,” he says, simply.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So you didn’t lose that part of your abilities?” Hux surmises. “Just the helpful parts?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren sparks again. “I lost </span>
  <em>
    <span>all </span>
  </em>
  <span>of my abilities!” He inhales, regaining control too late, as always. “I already told you that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And you won’t even explain to me how the hell it could possibly happen.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren looks back toward the passing stars. “It doesn’t matter,” he says, like he did last night.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux won’t hear it, not in an enclosed metal tube with him, not hurtling through Wild Space at hundreds of klicks per second.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It does matter,” he insists, “when I’m stuck on a tiny ship with you, working with you, relying on--”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you don’t want to be here,” Ren all but </span>
  <em>
    <span>snarls,</span>
  </em>
  <span> “turn the shuttle back around and go face the consequences for shuttle theft.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux digs his nails into the armrest. “I am just asking for some fucking information,” he says, as coldly as he can.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren’s mouth twitches, eyes flash, as if he’s about to make a retort that will put a blaster bolt he can no longer stop in mid-air through his skull.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he stops, looks from Hux to hyperspace, then at his boots. He inhales.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I lost them,” he says, each syllable delicate, “doing something I thought was </span>
  <em>
    <span>right</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux blinks. Something cold and amphibious gnaws at the pit of Hux’s stomach.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The verbiage. The verbiage is...not him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the strain of regret in his voice--the cynicism, too--that is. Hux clings to it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And you knew you would lose them?” he asks, bluntly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren swallows. His voice shrinks minutely. “No.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux shakes his head, exhaustion washing over him again, blurring his thoughts to static. Ren has this effect. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course you didn’t,” Hux manages.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren ignores him entirely. “I’m getting them back,” he points out, as if that negates the details of whatever happened. “My abilities. That’s what matters.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I suppose,” Hux allows, tucking loose hair out of his face. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Before his insomnia-addled brain can compose anything like a pointed follow-up question, Ren stands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m going to look around,” he announces. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Subject changed. </span>
  </em>
  <span>“Since we’re keeping the ship.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>An invitation strings his posture, hovering between his seat and the narrow hatch leading out of the cockpit. But he has a point.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even if he’s aggressively deterring Hux with logistics. (Damn him, he knows just what </span>
  <em>
    <span>will </span>
  </em>
  <span>deter Hux.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux can play along for the moment. He ducks out of the cockpit behind him.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>The Ghtroc 690 is a small transport, built for a crew of no more than two, traveling no further—apparently—than a sector at a time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A bare and narrow passageway connects the cramped cockpit with a common berth: single bunk, peeling leather couch, kitchenette counter with nanowave, tap, and hotplate. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A door on the starboard side opens into a small ‘fresher, where the owner’s shaving kit is still spread across the vanity.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux is going to clean it up. He is. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wipe down both occupied cabins with the chemicals in the under-sink cupboard. Toss the used razor and clippers in the rubbish compactor, keep the half-can of gel. Grill Ren about whatever the hell happened that turned him into a mere mortal. And what took his hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux will.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His running to-do list now stretches the length of his frontal lobe. The tasks blur together in a duracrete sludge.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“....two cartons of ration bars.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren’s voice cuts through the mush.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux blinks at a scuff on the plastone floor. Looks up at the gaping cupboard Ren’s examining.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Rations.” Ren holds up a cardboard carton of cloudberry-flavored bars. He speaks more to the enlarged-to-show-detail image on the package than to Hux. “We’re reasonably well-stocked.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mm.” Hux rubs his temple, shoves hair out of his eyes. “Good.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The hyperdrive drones underfoot. White noise. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His gaze drops. Grout climbs the tap. Needs cleaning.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren’s saying something, but it might as well be the hum of the ship.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux drags his eyes back to him and the bars and the bones sticking out of his hand. “What was it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m going to eat,” Ren apparently repeats. He looks Hux up and down. “Are you going to sleep?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You didn’t sleep at all last night,” Ren observes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux’s eyelids drop shut on sheer force of gravity. He shakes his head, forces them back open.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We have a few hours,” Ren says. His hand slips from the box to curl on the counter, knuckles down. “I’ll watch the controls. You’re no use asleep on your feet.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Very well,” Hux manages. His voice sounds hollow in his own ears. Desiccated.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren nods once, snatches the entire box of bars, and ducks back toward the cockpit, apparently to give Hux some privacy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It takes all of his dwindling energy to shuck his boots, strip the bunk of the owner’s sheets, and curl up under his cloak.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He orders the lights down, and sleep comes immediately, dark and heavy as a falling stone.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He’s back on Starkiller.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The dead planet shudders under his feet, dying all over again in a firestorm of supercharged plasma, in rivers of quintessence splintering its crust. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He’s fled the sight of it by now, fled the observatory and its windows, and he’s running through darkened corridors, footsteps echoing where they shouldn’t.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The sparse red emergency lights above him, on either side of the hallway, are steady, flashing no sequence. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>No klaxon sounds. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>His breath is loud, and his boots are loud, and he shouldn’t be running--he doesn’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>run--</span>
  <em>
    <span>but he has to try. Has to get out of here--somehow--though he’s only going further in. He’s turned around in his own damn facility.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“You’re lost,” echoes somewhere outside his body, somewhere in the shadows. “Call it what it is.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>It </span>
  </em>
  <span>isn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>lost. It’s an effect of the low lighting, of the emergency backup power that isn’t even working properly, isn’t even sounding an alarm.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He’ll find his way, but it isn’t as if he can stop moving to calculate or get his bearings. If he stops, he certainly isn’t getting out of here.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Isn’t getting to Ren.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Fuck,” he all but wheezes.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Snoke’s order. Why wasn’t he thinking of it?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Ren is out there, Ren is </span>
  </em>
  <span>dying</span>
  <em>
    <span>, Ren is bleeding out, and Hux knows that from the heart of the base, in the dark. He knows it like he knows what happens when the quintessence containment chamber at Starkiller’s core starts to splinter, from his thousand calculations. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The world will crumble, then a new star will burn away the wreck.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And if he doesn’t hurry, he and Ren will both burn with it.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>His heartbeat stutters in his ears, behind his eyes. His lungs sting, and his breath comes ragged. A dull pain threads through his side. He can’t stop.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Another tremor hits, rattling the base’s reinforced stone walls. A crack runs up the one to his right, upsetting the lampdisk there. The red beam dances wildly across the space in front of Hux, like a roving laser.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The crack in the wall widens. A chip of stone breaks off of it. Dust clouds the air. The structure groans.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Don’t stop, keep </span>
  <em>
    <span>moving.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He’s only a few steps ahead, when stone crashes behind him, vibrates in the soles of his feet. He looks up, and lines already spider the ceiling above his head.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Do you want to fucking suffocate?</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>A passage he hadn’t noticed before opens up to his left, and he turns into it. The clatter behind him swells to a roar. He can’t turn around. He can’t stop moving. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Headquarters is coming down around his ears, is falling from beneath his feet. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>His effects are up there. Upstairs. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He isn’t even wearing his coat.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He should be, if he’s going to go out in the blizzard, if he’s going to scrape Ren’s mangled body out of the snow.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>(Ren’s bleeding out.)</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>(Ren’s hand is gone.)</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Hux can’t go back.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He can’t go back, but he’s running downhill. The decline is shallow, but perceptible by the yellow lights.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The lights are gold in here, flickering like lampdisks shouldn’t. Like fire. What the hell happened to the generators? </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He stops abruptly, breathless for a single heartbeat, before that’s forgotten.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The flames lick at a small brazier of wrought metal, mounted on a wall of smooth stone. No durasteel braces it; it isn’t the jagged rock of Starkiller. A gibberish alphabet snakes across it, runes glittering silver in the light.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He reaches out to trace them, and the lettering is </span>
  </em>
  <span>cold. </span>
  <em>
    <span>It burns his fingers like dry ice.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He flinches back, but as he does, his gaze falls left, toward the direction he came from. The lettering is a silver stripe between the braziers, continuing as far as he can see. He’s cold all over.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He almost doesn’t want to look to his right, but he must. There’s no choice in the matter. Still, he turns as slowly as he can. He sees exactly what he knew was there: symmetry. The corridor continues like it did to his left--silver, gold, shadow. Infinite.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He knows this place. He’s been here before. In a dream.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>It’s the same way he knows what’s coming next. He has to get out before--</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The wall in front of him splinters like Starkiller, stress fractures webbing across it with a soft, inevitable crunch.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>His blood sings in his ears.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He has to go--he has to </span>
  </em>
  <span>get Ren--</span>
  <em>
    <span>but a glance up shows the ceiling is shattering, a glance down shows the ground is giving way, and he can’t--</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He runs anyway.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Rock crashes behind him. The runes flash on both sides of the hall like an SOS, blocked at intervals by the shadows of the crumbling ceiling.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He has to get Ren. Snoke is dead, but Hux still has no choice in the matter.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He runs as the stone breaks under his feet, meters upon meters, stumbling over crags and ridges, one step ahead of the ruin.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He’s looking at his feet for so long, the dead end rears up in front of him.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The falling stone thunders in his ears, approaching.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He turns madly, wildly, but it’s darkness behind him, darkness everywhere but the strips of lettering on the walls. Ten meters away, the hall crumbles into shadow.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Ren.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He turns in circles, or the room spins.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He has to get to Ren, he can’t be stuck here, Ren is somewhere, and he--</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“You didn’t see.” The voice doesn’t shake the air so much as permeate it.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The runes wink out. The roar of falling rock swells. The voice is louder.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“You didn’t see.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>”</span>
  </em>
  <span>See what?”</span>
  <em>
    <span> he tries to yell back, but dust fills his mouth, choking him.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The ground shakes. Shards of ceiling rain onto him. Something red lights the darkness--a saber, a blaster bolt, it’s arcing toward him--</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>It doesn’t matter.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The ceiling is falling.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He can’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>breathe</span>
  <em>
    <span>--</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He can’t--</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Hux</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The syllable machetes through the thicket of smothering shadows and crumbling stone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The darkness behind his eyelids fades to gray, then the migraine-white of overhead lampdisks. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hux, wake up.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux blinks more alert, squinting in the glare. A wave of disorientation spins his head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A hyperdrive hums somewhere below. The blanket over him isn’t a blanket, but his patched cloak. And the voice—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The voice is—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(</span>
  <em>
    <span>Dead, Ren is dead, you’re </span>
  </em>
  <span>dead—)</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“You didn’t see.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The pieces reassemble: Bonadan. Ren and his jacket. Ren and his maimed wrist. The 690.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bosthirda. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” Hux’s voice comes out slurry. His throat stings, and he clears it, belated.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He props himself up on his elbow, then folds fully upright, swiping perspiration from his forehead even as he shivers. Gooseflesh lingers on his arms.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren stands over the in-wall bunk, his hand gripping the panel above it. He’s shucked the jacket, but the gray flannel underneath is in little better condition, if cleaner now. His hair looks washed, less oily, and he must have run his clothes under the sonic, too. He hasn’t shaved.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>(He’s here</span>
  </em>
  <span>.)</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>(Here, not crushed by splintered stone.)</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>(Here, and Hux can see him.)</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux draws a shaky breath. Holds Ren’s gaze. He’s real, and that shouldn’t be a relief.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His eyes are dark, unreadable, under the chemical lighting, and they probe Hux’s face. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he’s looking at Hux like Hux is a malfunctioning droid, assessing the damages.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Like the dreams are tattooed on Hux’s skin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How did you sleep?” he asks, too casually. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Fuck.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s so fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>transparent--</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He saw or heard the fact of the nightmare. He must have: the thrashing that tangles Hux’s covers around his waist, the cries that have woken him up more than once.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The thought is almost too humiliating to entertain. It would be, if Hux hadn’t seen far worse from Ren.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Or if Ren were looking at him with anything but curiosity, concern.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well,” Hux replies, to spite him, but his voice sounds hollow in his own ears, faint, his head still ringing with the thunder of falling stone. “Thank you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren gnaws his lip, gaze drops to the scuffed floorboard. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>If he presses on this, if he says one fucking </span>
  </em>
  <span>word--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ren appears to change his mind, holds eye contact instead. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re about to drop to sublight,” he says, flat again, like he has been, the veneer over his shame. (The closest he can get to a mask, now.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The request is implicit. Kylo Ren, the Order’s finest, is asking him to land the damn ship. Is </span>
  <em>
    <span>having </span>
  </em>
  <span>to.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>(Is here.)</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Hux chafes his arms against the cold and the miasma of the dream. Represses a jab.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.” He swings his legs over the side of the bunk. “Of course.”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Ghost</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>And after a couple wild months, I'm back! Thanks for sticking around :)</p>
<p>For anyone who missed this PSA addition to Chapter 5:</p>
<p>I wanted to acknowledge that something really odd is going on with the guest kudos on this fic--I think a bot might be involved(?), and have written AO3 Support to ask :| But that said, thank you to everyone who is reading, leaving kudos, and commenting--y'all are the best! &lt;3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>(now)</strong>
</p>
<p>Whatever Hux was expecting from the Bosthirdan city of Jerunga, it wasn’t air so thick it could be exported to a water-poor world.</p>
<p>His boots thud dully beside Ren’s on the cobblestone sidewalk, the night thick with a steam-like mist. The humidity weighs on his lungs, plasters lank wisps of hair to his forehead under his hood. He carefully reaches up to swipe it clear, holding the cowl in place with one hand.</p>
<p>It’s really too hot for the cloak, but it isn’t as if he has much choice. Between his physical comfort and his anonymity, he’d rather be perspired than apprehended, transferred, and lethally injected.</p>
<p>Still, it would have been helpful if the 690’s external gauges had registered Jerunga’s dewpoint when entering atmo, rather than just its air temperature.</p>
<p>
  <em> As if you were even paying attention to the readouts. </em>
</p>
<p>In fairness, he hadn’t been.</p>
<p>The only meteorological pattern he’d had the luxury of registering on the way down was the marsh fog clogging Bosthirda’s troposphere. Between poor visibility and the fact that they were arriving on the world’s nightside, it was a white-knuckled, juddery landing.</p>
<p>On a backwater like this, at least there had been no clearance procedures or landing directions. They left the shuttle and a parking fee deposit in a mostly-vacant spaceport on the edge of the city, and have been heading steadily into what can only be Jerunga’s seediest district for the past half hour.</p>
<p>Behind them, the argon window signs of clubs, spice dispensaries, and hotels flicker red and pink. Two streets ago, a blaster bolt squealed somewhere in the darkness.</p>
<p>While Hux is trying not to suffocate, a cluster of Pykes are somehow <em> smoking </em> out here. They chatter beside the ramp that curves into a dive blasting canned valachord music into the night. Two of them throw spare glances at Hux and Ren--surely just two shadows amid the fog and streetlamps--and return to the low ebb of their conversation.</p>
<p>As the music fades, the night sounds return, seeping into the settlement from the surrounding swamp--the croaks of amphibious gwerps, the chatter of crickets, the suss of loam.</p>
<p>It’s the source of the humidity, naturally: Jerunga is encircled by peatlands on all sides, these ringed by close-knit tangles of mangroves. The brackish fumes hang in what can only be summer air, linger as a fine mist under yellow streetlamps.</p>
<p>It’s almost enough to make Hux look <em> forward </em>to reaching the unspecified sort of cantina where Ren thinks he’s going to get directions to his Sith temple.</p>
<p>One of the many disadvantages to Ren’s...well, <em> dead </em> line to the Force: He can’t even sense his way to his own damn religious sites.</p>
<p>As far as he’s aware, the temple should still be mostly intact, and is a reasonably common destination for pilgrims, or antiques smugglers at least. Common enough that <em> someone </em>in one of these cantinas will be willing to disclose the route--for a price.</p>
<p>Or so Ren claims, based on his six months rooting for artifacts in the underworld with his Knights, over seven years ago now. As Hux walks beside him down the splintered gray curb of what must pass for a major thoroughfare in Jerunga, the <em> plan </em>seems decreasingly feasible.</p>
<p>No matter with whom Ren ran around the galaxy before he showed up on the <em> Finalizer </em> dressed like he wanted to pirate it in the name of some Hutt czar, it’s absurd to the point of comedy to picture him smooth-talking pirates or bribing informants over jet juice in some humming cantina.</p>
<p>(Whatever his father was, he isn’t it.)</p>
<p>Which of course sets the schmoozing firmly on the shoulders of his former top diplomat. Hux may be good in a surrender negotiation, but he neither visits cantinas, nor knows how to get what he wants from people that do.</p>
<p>And even <em> if </em>they can somehow locate, convince, and bribe someone in this town to point them toward the temple, the trip there won’t be easy.</p>
<p>There’s absolutely no way the shuttle is capable of landing on anything but totally solid ground. This automatically limits their options to foot travel and the remote possibility of renting or hiring some sort of...swamp skimmer? And that for an absurd price.</p>
<p>Hux really should have withdrawn more cash this morning, though Bosthirda may yet have an auto-teller connected to the Corporate Sector Authority Bank. Hopefully.</p>
<p>It’s admittedly a lot to hope. But so is finding the Order again, so is there being anything <em> to </em>find, and fuck, this was stupid.  Hux doesn’t do this. He doesn’t make hopeless plans in the dead of a single night, then destroy his livelihood on a flashbang decision.</p>
<p>Or, well. He only did once. Six months ago.</p>
<p>
  <em> And see where the fuck that got you. </em>
</p>
<p>Ren’s voice cuts through the snarl of regrets</p>
<p>“Hey,” he says, which has apparently become a sufficient substitute for Hux’s name. The syllable comes faint, dull, in the muggy air.</p>
<p>Hux inhales deeply. “Yes?”</p>
<p>Ren nods across the street at the precise moment a land speeder trundles past, filling Hux’s line of sight with rusty siding and stacked supply crates.</p>
<p>“After this passes,” Ren explains, below the hum of its thrusters. “The cantina right across looks promising.”</p>
<p>“If you say so.”</p>
<p>The speeder trundles past, leaving clear street in both directions. </p>
<p>Hux follows Ren across, toward the locked-open doors of an upstanding establishment whose argon lettering reads <em> The Floating Log.  </em></p>
<p>Sallow light filters through smoke against long windows. A live kloo horn blares through the gaping entrance, over the roar of conversation and an arpeggio of raucous laughter.</p>
<p>Hux’s steps slow all but involuntarily as he follows Ren onto the sidewalk, anxiety coiling fresh around his diaphragm.</p>
<p>Ren is still just a step in front of him--it would be too easy to reach out and pinch his sleeve, suggest that perhaps a packed bar isn’t the best place for someone with a face as well-broadcast as Armitage Hux’s--but there’s no use stopping him. No use quarreling out here like drunk lovers. Making the inevitable scene.</p>
<p>Hux, therefore, follows him under the metal awning, between the wide-swung double doors, and into the yellow haze.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s been fifteen years since Hux last set foot in a cantina. <em> The Floating Log </em>is a comprehensive reminder of why.</p>
<p>Not that the sallow, tabac-clogged pub is anything like the strobe-lit nightclubs to which Second Lieutenant Hux accepted a handful of misbegotten invitations during his first posting out of the Academy, on the waste world Abafar.</p>
<p>Those were all pulsing lights and dim shadows, writhing bodies and throbbing bass. Here, the lights are up, and the bodies stand still, but there remains a crushing throng, sitting or standing in clusters, blocking view of the bar itself.</p>
<p>Tabac smoke and indefinite chatter cloud the air. What must be years of soot stains cling to the lampdisks and the wooden rafters. The air reeks. It’s all Hux can do not to press his sleeve under his nose to filter it as he follows the path Ren shoulders through the crowd.</p>
<p>The music may be live and brass and wailing, the smoke may be from tabac rather than a fog machine, the patrons may be shooting the shit, not sighing into each other’s mouths, but the claustrophobia is the same as the Abafarian clubs: the deafening racket, the nauseating fumes, the overwhelming press of sentient life.</p>
<p>It was never enjoyable, on any of the off-shifts Hux allowed himself to be dragged along, and he stopped the habit as soon as he was tapped for promotion. </p>
<p>(He couldn’t fraternize with subordinates, but moreover, cantina-crawling is viscerally dull when you’re the only nineteen-year-old interested neither in getting a motel room with one of the Twi’leks dancing at the other end of the club, nor consuming beverages with sugar content, generally speaking.)</p>
<p>He’s gotten over the sugar aversion by now at least, if not the other.</p>
<p>Once he and Ren reach the bar and claim two recently-occupied seats, he orders a pale Trandoshan ale. Not because he particularly cares for ale--or Trandoshans, for that matter--but it’s the least expensive option available that will take more than two swallows to finish.</p>
<p>Ren, on the other hand, quickly reaches the turquoise dregs of his whiskey. He arrhythmically drums the side of the snifter, but at least must be aware they can’t afford a second round.</p>
<p>“So,” Hux says, as low as he can over the din of live music, conversation, and clinking glasses, “what am I supposed to ask them?” He nods vaguely toward the Ithorian bartender at the other end of the counter.</p>
<p>Ren’s fingers pause on the glass. “Nothing,” he says. “I’m going to ask them for some zuchii crisps. If you’re not going to drink that, you should get something, too.”</p>
<p>“I had a ration bar on the shuttle,” Hux replies, stiffly.</p>
<p>Ren shrugs. “So did I.”</p>
<p>More precisely, he had an entire <em> box </em>of ration bars while Hux was asleep. (Hux spotted the wrappers in the cockpit bin.) Hux would have criticized, if Ren didn’t so obviously need every calorie he can get. </p>
<p>(If Hux weren’t familiar with the gnawing, insatiable hunger that follows a period of starvation like a mynock on a ship’s stern.)</p>
<p>Hux sighs. “How much are the crisps?”</p>
<p>“Cheap,” Ren returns, and lifts a hand to flag the bartender.</p>
<p>The Ithorian’s left eye lands on him, and their hammer-head nods acknowledgment as they serve another patron. Apparently, they’ll be right over.</p>
<p>“How cheap is ‘cheap?’” Hux hisses. “We have to have some credits left for fuel. And for whatever tourist trapper extorts us tomorrow.”</p>
<p>“We won’t have to worry about credits after the temple tomorrow,” Ren says, running his hand through his hair. He nods down the counter. “But that barkeep won’t tell us anything about getting there if we don’t have a tab open.”</p>
<p>Hux shakes his head, rubs his temple with condensation-cool fingers.</p>
<p>“I should have taken out more hard credits,” he murmurs.</p>
<p>Ren ignores him, tapping a thin menu tablet on the counter. Its listings glow in blue type. “What else do you want?”</p>
<p>“I have--” Hux flicks a hand toward his ale. ”--this.” </p>
<p>Ren snorts. “You don’t even drink ale.”</p>
<p>“I loathe ale.”</p>
<p>“So why would you order it?” </p>
<p>“So I can sit here and <em> pretend </em> I’m drink--”</p>
<p>The warble of Ithorese cuts Hux off, the alien’s vocoder translating in sequence: <em> “What can I get you, sir?” </em></p>
<p>It’s always a bit unsettling to address an Ithorian: their eyes spread too far apart in leathery skin, their two mouths moving out of sync. Meanwhile the only intelligible sound emerges in a robotic monotone from the vocoder strapped to their back.</p>
<p>Of course Ren appears not to register the discomfort.</p>
<p>“I’ll have the zuchii crisps,” he says, simply. “And my counterpart will have…” His gaze drops, scanning the menu again.</p>
<p>“Soda water,” Hux interrupts, at the same time that Ren says, “A gin and tonic.”</p>
<p>The Ithorian burbles a few short notes.</p>
<p>“That’s right,” Ren returns, in the beat before their vocoder kicks in.</p>
<p>Something like pleasure, or at least curiosity, sparks in their eyes: a human who understands their language. It’s all Hux can do not to scoff. Ren’s won them over without so much as a smile. </p>
<p>“<em> One order of zuchii </em> ,” the vocoder announces, belated, as they turn away, with a bob of their curved neck “ <em> and one gin and tonic </em>.”</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>The drink isn’t bad, as gin-and-tonics go, but Hux still nurses it as slowly as possible. It lasts two more exchanges with the barkeep, at which point Ren orders him a second. Anything, apparently, to keep the credits flowing. </p>
<p>The Ithorian, however, appears as interested in Ren's xenolinguistic abilities as his lengthening tab. He humors their attempts at conversation, explains in a single word that he picked up the language "traveling." (It isn't a lie.) When they ask where he and Hux are from, he offers only half of the slapdash cover story they composed shortly before entering atmo: They’re pilgrims. No further information required. </p>
<p>The barkeep seems intrigued, but Ren still orders some sort of pink sludge that's listed as a cream-based house special, and a second order of zuchii--which Hux dutifully picks at--before disclosing the Temple as their intended destination.</p>
<p>The Ithorian is reticent at first, but responds well to Ren's insistence on visiting what- or wherever the cantina's back room is, and a hefty tip. It’s still the slowest Hux has ever seen him get information.</p>
<p>The Ithorian turns off their vocoder to warble instructions to him, and Hux settles the tab.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Within minutes, they’ve entered the door beside the bandstand, climbed a cramped flight of stairs, and provided to an Ithorian bouncer a password from downstairs. Behind an uninteresting wooden door lies what’s less a back room than a separate establishment.</p>
<p>Hux blinks, adjusting to low, pinkish light. The air pulses with the clamor of conversation and the dull throb of canned music. White smoke curls around sentients of two dozen species, reclined at low tables, applauding for a dancer in the corner, and arguing at a plasteel-topped bar.</p>
<p>At the table nearest the bar, four Zabraks cut lines of spice. On a low couch on the left wall, a spent needle rests in a sprawled Pyke’s open, three-fingered hand. A human straight ahead of Hux gestures between the Bith he’s talking to and the Twi’lek dancing in the corner with a handful of credits.</p>
<p>Ren is silent beside Hux for the moment it takes to sweep the room. </p>
<p>“A Nikto in a red mantle?” Hux asks, below the music. It was what Ren relayed on the way up, the Ithorian’s referred criminal. </p>
<p>“Yeah,” Ren affirms, still scanning. </p>
<p>After a moment, he shakes his head and takes a step toward the center of the room. Hux follows him between tables and standing clusters of sentients, heads close. </p>
<p>Snippets of conversation waver through the hazy air. Not a word is surprising, given Bosthirda’s astrocoords and the events of the past six months: this far out, the dregs of the galaxy have already filled the void the New Republic refuses to.</p>
<p>
  <em> “--twenty thousand for her, twenty thou’, that is my final offer--” </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> “--by the camtono, they’ll pay a hundred credits a milligram--” </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> “--set up on Kessel, tax-free--” </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em> “--ammo to the Black Sun guys in charge on Talos Nine--” </em>
</p>
<p>Hux shoulders around a lumbering Blutopian, keeping close behind Ren, whose posture is wound tight, gaze skimming the room like a battlefield. He’s no more comfortable in this world than Hux is, not after seven years with the Order.</p>
<p>They didn’t make it to Bosthirda during the war, but with every step into the throng, it skips up Hux’s list of worlds to start with, once Ren revives his connection to the Force, once they make it to what’s left of the fleet, once--</p>
<p>The chain of prerequisites dissolves as a flash of red next to the bar catches in the corner of Hux’s eye. He turns, and the source can be nothing but the bartender’s contact: a gray-skinned Nikto, dressed in what’s more of a leisure suit than the “mantle” Ren translated. What it is, however, is fiercely red.</p>
<p>Hux nudges Ren, nods toward the bar. “I fancy that’s him.”</p>
<p>Ren’s gaze flickers from Hux to the Nikto, then instantly back: assessment made. His fingers work at his side. “Let’s go.” </p>
<p>He pivots toward the bar, and within steps, the Nikto looks up from a cocktail glass and the silk-clad human across from him, aware of their approach. </p>
<p>The xeno’s gold-tipped facial spikes glitter under the light. Something like recognition flickers in his black eyes. </p>
<p>Hux’s stomach flips, hand twitches for the second unnecessary time toward the blaster under his cloak. He barely stops the reflex as the Nikto’s expression takes on a salesman’s smoothness, and he dismisses his companion with a flick of a bejeweled hand.</p>
<p>The bartender must have alerted him to potential customers heading toward him. That’s all.</p>
<p>Hux inhales as the Nikto meets first his eyes, then Ren’s, and nods toward the empty chairs across from him as they round the last table ahead.</p>
<p>“Hello, gentlemen,” the xeno says, beaming, as they reach his table. “Old Tul downstairs let me know you were coming. Have a seat, please.”</p>
<p>Hux forces up the corners of his mouth. “Thank you very much,” he replies, pitching his voice into a diplomat’s measured warmth. He pulls out the leather-backed chair, and Ren mirrors him, wordless.</p>
<p>“Good evening,” Hux says, switching accents, once he’s seated, “we appreciate your meeting with us on such short notice.”</p>
<p>“Of course, of course.” The Nikto extends a scaly hand, coat sleeve pulling up to reveal a wrist of jewel-studded bangles. “Deem Nahur, at your service.”</p>
<p>Hux takes it. “Surik Teneb,” he says, flipping the order of the name on his record on Bonadan. He really ought to have chosen a new moniker for the occasion, but by now this one rolls off the tongue. </p>
<p>It raises no questions from Nahur, at any rate. The smile doesn’t falter as he pumps Hux’s hand, then turns to Ren, switching--to his credit--seamlessly to his left hand to accommodate Ren.</p>
<p>“Dessel Hurst,” Ren pronounces, with what must be the same six months’ practice Hux has. “Pleasure,” he adds, paradoxically flat.</p>
<p>“Anything to drink?” Nahur seems to offer, dropping Ren’s hand to lift his own fluted glass. A blue prawn of some kind hangs on the rim as a garnish.</p>
<p>Hux thins his lips. “We’re fine.”</p>
<p>“Straight to business, then,” the Nikto replies, setting his glass down, before Hux can continue. “Perfect. Tul told me you’re heading to the Temple, yes?”</p>
<p>“Yes--” Hux starts, but bites down as Nahur interrupts.</p>
<p>“I’ll tell you up-front,” the Nikto drawls. “I send out one of my guides to take you there, I get forty percent off of anything you find.”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry?”</p>
<p>Nahur spreads a hand as if explaining the obvious. “The lower levels are most likely still flooded this early in the season, but there’s a chance you’ll find something worth recovering. I’ve gotta make a living somehow,” he adds with an indulgent dip of his spiked chin. “Can’t just open up the place for free looting.”</p>
<p>“We’re not here for artifacts,” Ren cuts in.</p>
<p>The Nikto smiles, baring sharp reptilian teeth. “Of course not,” he replies, more unctuously than he has yet. “Let me guess, you’re archaeologists. Just here to study, not to sell.” He pulls the prawn off his cocktail glass. “I’ve heard that one before.”</p>
<p>Apparently, the cover story failed to make it to Nahur from the barkeep. Perhaps it might have been better to claim to be treasure hunters from the beginning--none of this would have to be explained--but by the look of this Nikto, his artifacts business seems like nothing they’d care to get caught up in.</p>
<p>And certainly not before Ren has his abilities again.</p>
<p>Hux inhales, therefore, drops his voice to a softness that fits the lie. “We’re pilgrims,” he says, as demurely as he can manage.</p>
<p>The Nikto’s slate-gray lips part, incredulous; the prawn freezes between his fingertips. </p>
<p>“Pilgrims?” he says, half a scoff, while something like genuine amusement flickers in his eyes. “Now <em> that </em>I haven’t heard in twenty years. Pilgrims,” he repeats, with a snort, but seems to sober, looking thoughtfully between Hux and Ren.</p>
<p>After a moment, he hums, and pops the prawn whole into his mouth. He swallows quickly. “I might believe it,” he says, appraisingly. “Where from?”</p>
<p>“Tehar,” Hux replies, simply, “the monastery there.” The other half of the cover story: the precarious half. </p>
<p>His heart thuds for the moment that Nahur’s brow furrows, clearly wracking his mind for any recollection of the world. </p>
<p>There should be none, of course: Ren ensured as much six months before Starkiller, with an impromptu massacre of the microplanet’s single settlement. (<em> “There was Light,” </em> he’d said, after, tearful, to Hux’s baffled rage. <em> “There was Light. I had to.” </em>)</p>
<p>There were no survivors, supposedly--in theory, the perfect false homeworld. No real inhabitant remains on or off the planet to contest the story, and no one else in the galaxy should be aware of what happened there.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, Hux holds his breath, shaping an adequate response to, <em> “Isn’t everyone from Tehar dead?” </em> or worse: <em> “Don’t I recognize you from somewhere, Mr. Teneb?” </em></p>
<p>But no question comes.</p>
<p>After a second, Nahur purses his lips, shakes his head. “Never heard of it,” he says, dismissive. He returns promptly to business: “Then I hope you pious men won’t mind if my guide checks to make sure no sacred relics have fallen into your bags.”</p>
<p>Hux ignores the condition. “So you <em> will </em> take us to the Temple, then?”</p>
<p>“It will still cost you a passage fee,” the Nikto replies, guarded, looking between them again, as if doubting poor friars can afford him.</p>
<p>In Hux’s periphery, Ren leans slightly forward. “How much?”</p>
<p>“I typically require half up front,” Nahur says, raising his voice as a louder song blasts through the speakers. “Then the rest upon safe return to Jerunga.”</p>
<p>“Very well,” Hux replies, but presses the point: “And your rates?”</p>
<p>Without breaking eye contact, the Nikto swirls the dregs of his cocktail. “Ordinarily, I would make it five thousand each for offworlders, but--” He sets down the glass with a dramatic flair that makes Hux want to reach across the table and yank the prop out of his reach. “--for you men of faith, I’ll make it five thousand for both. Twenty-five hundred up front,” he adds, as if he also thinks poor friars have no grasp of basic mathematics.</p>
<p>But even his purported discount pins the fee squarely out of Hux’s price range. After Ren’s spending at the bar, they’re inching toward 1,950 credits to both their names.</p>
<p>Hux glances at his hands on the tabletop, then back up at the Nikto, forcing the best simper he can. </p>
<p>“We’re going to have to wire our abbot for fuel credits for the return flight as it is,” he says, less imploring than matter-of-fact. He knows enough about this to start with a lowball. “I’m afraid we can’t offer more than a thousand total.”</p>
<p>A year ago, he would have followed up the request with a detailed reminder of the nearest Star Destroyer’s current position and armament systems. </p>
<p>(A year ago, no one would have dared to haggle with the man who blew five worlds to stardust.)</p>
<p>But as it is, a condescending smile spreads like a faultline across the Nikto’s face. “And here I thought you pious sorts wouldn’t try to swindle me,” he says. “But how would four thousand suit your abbot?”</p>
<p>It’s a promising jump down, but still well out of reach. But the fact that he’s still sitting here after Hux’s initial offer suggests he can be reasoned with.</p>
<p><em> What about fourteen-hundred? </em> is on the tip of Hux’s tongue, when Ren stirs beside him.</p>
<p>“Two thousand,” he says, faster, without so much as a glance at Hux. </p>
<p>In profile, though, it’s like an archived glimpse of another time (or it would be, if not for the bones sticking out of his face): Ren’s gaze is durasteel, his tone taut with the impatient cadence that once held power. If he had any of it left, the Nikto would be giving<em> him </em>two thousand credits right now.</p>
<p>But of course, he’s an idiot.</p>
<p>He has no power but the nineteen hundred credits in Hux’s pocket, and with that offer, he’s automatically signed away more than they can afford. </p>
<p><em> “He doesn’t mean that </em> ,” Hux wants to lean across the table and say. <em> “My colleague had one too many downstairs; I’ll do the bargaining.” </em></p>
<p>However, he knows enough to know neither of them can renege. He curls his fists in his lap, stiffens his spine. Ren’s not getting any more help.</p>
<p>But he may not need it.</p>
<p>“Two thousand?” Nahur tsks. “That would hardly pay my guide. Thirty-six hundred, so she and I both get a share.”</p>
<p>“We can’t,” Ren replies, flatly. “<em> Twenty </em>-six hundred.”</p>
<p>As if they can pay that, either.</p>
<p>“Thirty-three hundred,” the Nikto counters.</p>
<p>“Twenty-eight hundred.”</p>
<p>“Thirty-two hundred.”</p>
<p>“Three thousand.”</p>
<p>“Done.”</p>
<p>
  <em> Fucking hell. </em>
</p>
<p>Ren finally turns to Hux, an inexplicable flicker of satisfaction in his gaze, the timeworn smugness of <em> see how it’s done? </em> </p>
<p>All Hux sees is the specter of eleven hundred credits he does not possess, and will not possess within the next day-cycle. He looks pointedly from Ren back to the xeno, fists balling in his lap while his pulse pounds in his ears.</p>
<p>They don’t have that sort of money. </p>
<p>This isn’t a year ago, when the galaxy was spread at their feet, and they could take anything its betterment required.</p>
<p>“So,” Nahur is saying, extending a hand that seems to hover between Hux and Ren, unsure where to shake, “you’ll owe five hundred tonight, to reserve a guide, then a thousand before your departure tomorrow morning, then the other half upon your safe return tomorrow evening. Do we have a deal?”</p>
<p>Hux is not about to shake on that. He lets Ren handle it, left-handed, while he digs out the credits. He keeps the pouch in his lap, well out of the sight of the Nikto or any observant passers-by, counts out five plastoid chits, then slides them across the table as Nahur explains the procedures for tomorrow morning.</p>
<p>“She’ll be a native Bosthirdan, gray mantle, three eyes, fourth dock at the East Port.” The Nikto pauses to scoop up the credits, tuck them into a pouch far thicker than Hux’s own. “Thank you, gentlemen. Pleasure doing business with you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s a sticky, silent walk back to the spaceport slab where the shuttle awaits them like some slow, patient reptile, a darker shadow under scattershot floodlights.</p>
<p>It took every remaining fragment of Hux’s good judgment not to whirl on him the second they set foot outside the cantina--it would be far from the first budget disagreement they’ve had in seven years--but. Ren.</p>
<p>He’s worked with the man long enough to know that a whispered criticism holds all probability of mushrooming into a public spectacle. The last thing they need on the streets of Jerunga is a head-turning shouting match about three thousand credits and the crumbling remains of the First Order.</p>
<p>So he sets his jaw and walks briskly beside Ren, stringing together snide remarks and concrete numbers, while their boots thud on flagstone, then duracrete, then asphalt.</p>
<p>By the time the 690’s hatch shuts behind them, therefore, sealing them into the humid hold, it’s past time something was said.</p>
<p>“What the hell?” he demands, turning from the lock panel to Ren, whose self-satisfied expression is somehow even more intolerable under the ship’s harsh lighting.</p>
<p>To add insult to financial mismanagement, Ren’s brows pull together in what looks like actual fucking confusion. “What the hell, what?” he asks, and sounds like he means it.</p>
<p>Hux’s fist curls at his side. “Are you aware of how many credits I have on my person right now?”</p>
<p>“Fourteen hundred,” Ren replies, almost breezily.</p>
<p>Hux thins his lips. “Yet you fail to see any problem with the fact that that gangster is going to expect twenty-five hundred from us tomorrow?” </p>
<p>Ren shrugs, awkward in the oversized jacket. “It isn’t like we’re going to have to pay it.”</p>
<p>“Well, it was my understanding that we would in fact be <em> returning </em>from this temple, at which point we will be asked for credits which we do not possess--”</p>
<p>“At which <em> point </em>,” Ren interrupts, less sharp than weary, indulgent, “I will be connected to the Force again. I’ll tell them that they don’t need credits from us. They won’t realize they didn’t get paid until we’re a system away.” He gives Hux no chance to answer, before stepping around him, headed toward the main cabin.</p>
<p>Hux pops his lips and follows him, lampdisks flickering on overhead. </p>
<p>Ren ducks immediately from the crew cabin into the cockpit, apparently to retrieve his effects, then directly into the ‘fresher, all without a word. </p>
<p>All before Hux can so much as regather the threads of his argument.</p>
<p>The door scrapes shut on its track, leaving Hux in relative silence. He considers yelling through the door, but the tap kicks on. </p>
<p>Whatever.</p>
<p>Ren can’t stay in there all night.</p>
<p>What would he even say? <em> What if doesn’t work, what if your abilities aren’t restored, what if we’re fucked-- </em></p>
<p>But on the slim probability Ren’s powers don’t return, they’ll have far larger problems than a gold-spiked Nikto demanding eleven hundred credits.</p>
<p>It’s going to work.</p>
<p>If there’s one thing Ren knows, it’s the Force.</p>
<p>An image flickers unbidden across Hux’s mind: a DL-44 pistol at Deem Nahur’s gilded belt, the arc of a yellow bolt, blinding. It screeches. Reeks of burning hyperfuel. Then charred flesh.</p>
<p>Hux blinks.</p>
<p>Yellow floaters linger in front of his eyes for a moment, blurring the gray furnishings of the hold. Water runs in the ‘fresher.</p>
<p>Hux rubs his eyes, his stinging nose, clearing his senses.</p>
<p>
  <em> Well done, you’re falling asleep on your fucking feet. </em>
</p>
<p>“Damnit,” he breathes, and starts moving to keep from drifting again.</p>
<p>He may be exhausted, but he’s certainly not going to collapse into a heap for Ren to find. He covers his nose with his hand, breathes into his finger, to clear the last of the phantom scent. He’s too fucking tired for this.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, he shucks his cloak, crosses the cabin, and kneels beside the bunk. From the storage compartments underneath, he extracts the clean linens he didn’t bother with earlier this cycle. </p>
<p>The tap rushes for a few more minutes while he inventories the bedding on the stripped mattress: Adequate for the bunk and the couch. (The ship’s former owner’s are in much better condition than the ones Hux brought from Bonadan.)</p>
<p>What he also should have brought is a damn pillow. The only one on board appears to be the one on the bunk, but perhaps there’s some sort of spare cushion in the cockpit that will suit until--</p>
<p>
  <em> You acquire one? With the credits Ren’s already spent on bar food and exorbitant passage fees? </em>
</p>
<p>Tomorrow, Hux reminds himself. Tomorrow, and anyone in the galaxy will hand Ren anything he wants.</p>
<p>“Do you want me over there?”</p>
<p>The ‘fresher door apparently opens quieter than it shuts. </p>
<p>Ren stands over Hux, clothes folded over his bad arm, in the inner layer he must have decided counts as sleepwear. He jerks his head vaguely toward the couch.</p>
<p><em> Yes, </em> Hux almost says, <em> please. </em></p>
<p>But. Ren.</p>
<p>Without the jacket and layers, the damage done by six months’ malnutrition and a rough amputation shows clearly. The scarring from Starkiller is gone, from his arm and neck as from his face, but it does nothing to improve the overall effect.</p>
<p>Ren’s body is like a gruesome crash site, too horrifying to look away from. The shelves of his ribs show through his thin undershirt. Even his left arm is thin, wiry with muscle where it should be thick. But his right arm is the worst of it: skeletal, atrophied from disuse. </p>
<p>Hopefully the first thing he intends to acquire tomorrow is a cybernetic. But even then, it would take at least another year for his physical strength to be what it was. Even if he <em> had </em>a lightsaber, Hux has no confidence that those arms could wield it.</p>
<p>Something curls in his chest--the sympathetic remnant of his own vanity, or an officer’s protectiveness, or whatever Order tenet simply wanted every being in the galaxy fed--it doesn’t matter. Any trace of argument about eleven hundred credits withers in the face of…this.</p>
<p>“I said--” Ren starts again, when Hux has stared too long.</p>
<p>Hux blinks, rises with a hand on the bunk. “I heard you,” he says. “I used it earlier this cycle. If you wanted to rotate.”</p>
<p>“Sure,” Ren replies, flat but too quick.</p>
<p>Hux turns back to the stacks on the bunk. “I suppose we can acquire a better ship tomorrow, as well,” he says, scooping up a blanket and flatsheet for the couch.</p>
<p>Ren scoffs. “If we could find one in this junkyard.”</p>
<p>“It does seem a shabby selection out there,” Hux admits. He crosses the two meters to the couch, spreads the flatsheet over cracked vinyl upholstery.</p>
<p>It occurs to him whether Ren will be able to manage the bedding all right with, well, his hand. But the rustling behind sounds like he’s at least making headway.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” he says, too matter-of-fact, “we’ll have our pick anywhere in the galaxy.” <em> Again, </em> he doesn’t have to clarify. <em> Like before. </em>“But we’ll still be stuck with your flying,” he adds, after a second.</p>
<p>“Better than yours right now,” Hux shoots back.</p>
<p>“Right now,” Ren seems to allow.</p>
<p>Hux unfolds the blanket over the flatsheet. “So you do intend to get a cybernetic.”</p>
<p>“No,” Ren replies, drily, “I actually really enjoy having limited motor skills.”</p>
<p>Hux doesn’t dignify that with a response. He looks at the smoke-stained ceiling, then smooths over the blanket he’s laid out. He sits, slips off his boots and socks, then gets up to root in his duffel bag for the trousers he’s been sleeping in, stow his socks in an outer pocket, and collect his toothbrush and comb.</p>
<p>He really ought to shower tonight, but it suddenly seems like a monumental effort. Exhaustion fuzzes the edges of his mind, weighs down his hands. He’ll bother with it before they leave in the morning.</p>
<p>“I’ll be in the ‘fresher,” he announces.</p>
<p>Ren looks up from the bunk, right arm pinning a flatsheet in place while he pulls it toward the pillow with his good hand. “I’ll be asleep.”</p>
<p>He is, when Hux gets out, lights still at eight percent, curled into himself in the narrow bunk. His breathing is as soft as it was last night on Bonadan, in another life.</p>
<p>The shuttle’s lights don’t have voice control, so Hux dials them down by hand before groping his way to the couch and crawling blindly under the blanket he just spread.</p>
<p>The chrono above the hatch to the cockpit casts the only light in the cabin, dim and red and synched to the wrong time zone. <em> 0612 </em>winks into the shadows, dawn on some other, unknown world.</p>
<p>Hux shuts his eyes against it, and the light that lingers behind them is just the afterglow of the digital readout. The scent of plasma is merely a figment of exhaustion.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Dawn over Jerunga comes less as a sunrise than a gradual brightening, like slowly dialing up the lampdisk in a colorless room. What was pitch-black when Hux followed Ren out the 690’s hatch has given way to the smudged gray of low clouds and heavy fog by the time they approach the fourth dock at the East Port.</p>
<p>Mist spreads thick in every direction at the edge of the swamp. It obscures everything beyond the docks on either side and the first five meters of livid growth on the surface of the water. The humidity is just as smothering as last night, but the temperature has dropped, leaving Hux’s hands clammy at his sides.</p>
<p>Next to him, Ren tugs the right side of his jacket across his chest, clearly against the chill. He’s been silent on the walk here, but fully <em> present </em>at least, glancing left and right down every side street and alleyway, as if to compensate for his missing extrasensory abilities. (As if he were carrying a weapon that isn’t an antique penknife.)</p>
<p>His gaze seems to focus, at any rate, as they step from the boardwalk onto the damp wood of the quay. The beams creak under their feet, the only sound in earshot.</p>
<p>At the end of the dock stands a figure wrapped in the gray mantle Nahur promised last night. The head lifts, and eyes gleam from within, at this proximity.</p>
<p>“Morning!” pipes a voice out of the hood, high and cheerful, the brightest thing in at least a five-meter radius. The figure tosses up a hand in greeting, and with a few steps more, it’s clear she’s alien: slick-looking indigo skin, with three high-set dark eyes. “You must be the monks.”</p>
<p>“Good morning,” Hux replies, because he knows damn well Ren won’t. “Yes, we are,” he continues, coming to a stop in front of her. “You’re to guide us?”</p>
<p>“Yep! My <em> boss-- </em>” She emphasizes the term, but names no names. “--said you paid five hundred down?”</p>
<p>“So we did,” Hux replies, already patting for the credit pouch. It doesn’t hurt to check:</p>
<p>“You’d like a thousand now?”</p>
<p>The guide beams, revealing a carnivore’s pointed teeth. “Please,” she chirps.</p>
<p>Hux extracts the requisite chits. The four hundred left in the pouch rattle pitifully against each other as he tucks it away again.</p>
<p>The guide--to her credit, enthusiastic--chatters as they board a narrow skiff. The residue of deep green algae clings to what’s visible of its hull, but at least it’s sturdy enough not to wobble. It sits in the plant-thick water like an insect in syrup.</p>
<p>“It’s about a three-hour trip to the temple,” the guide--Lurrill, it sounded like, when she prattled off her name and Bosthirdan ancestry--explains, cranking a bulky motivator at the back of the boat. “Give or take however long you folks want to...worship there?” She stumbles but recovers. “...we should be back before nightfall.”</p>
<p>“Good,” Hux says, dismissively. Hopefully the monosyllable will discourage further conversation.</p>
<p>Ren, however, cuts in. “We don’t expect more than two hours.”</p>
<p>“Great!” the guide replies, as if the prospect actually thrilled her.</p>
<p>The engine revs once, twice, under her ministrations, then roars to life, a loud buzzing that throbs in Hux’s sternum, vibrates in the bottom of the skiff. She lets Hux and Ren settle onto a single bench in the center of the boat, then unmoors it from the dock.</p>
<p>As it moves out into the water, the guide manages to project over even the drone of the engine. Fortunately, she’d rather hear herself talk than ask about the particulars of Teharan culture or the thrilling lifestyle of a monk in the service of the Force.</p>
<p>When the mist has totally swallowed the dock, and she’s hardly paused for breath, Hux cuts his eyes at Ren, whose lips have curved into a bitter, tired smirk.</p>
<p>He holds Hux’s gaze and mouths, <em> Three. Hours. </em></p>
<p>Hux thins his lips to suppress a scoff.</p>
<p>From behind them, the guide has started in on the history of the temple, the <em> “cult-shit-sorry-I-mean-sect” </em> of supposedly foresighted Dark Side practitioners who built it, and their dubious prophecies.</p>
<p>After a moment, Hux leans closer to Ren. “She’s talking about the Force now,” he whispers. “Can’t you say you’re already informed?”</p>
<p>“Do you think that would work?” Ren mutters back.</p>
<p>In all likelihood, it would have next to no effect, and only raise questions it’s better Ren not attempt to answer. Hux stares at his boots against the rust-streaked bottom of the skiff, pulls his cloak tighter around his shoulders against the wind generated by the skiff’s forward momentum.</p>
<p>It cuts through the dense water, narrow prow parting the mist as it goes. The algae and reeds filling the water change from greens to blues and oranges, likely with the acidity. A line of trees, curving roots twisting out of the water, comes into view, then at some point the skiff passes under their boughs. The guide steers around trailing vines and fallen, mouldering branches that poke out of the algae like blackened bones.</p>
<p>It’s impossible to gauge the time, with the clouds obscuring the sun and the datapad left on the shuttle. The guide’s voice eventually mingles with the hum of the engine into a single current of background noise, loud but ultimately irrelevant. Ignorable.</p>
<p>Hux has nothing better to do than think, nothing more pressing to consider than their steps from here. Which he is not even remotely clear on. What starts as a shadow on his thoughts--the uncertainty of  <em> what’s-next </em>--crystallizes into a glacier in the pit of his stomach. It chills him through, colder with every sluggish meter the skiff covers, closing the distance between himself and whatever restorative process Ren thinks is going to occur at this temple.</p>
<p>When he can’t stand it anymore (when Lurrill seems so thoroughly absorbed in an account of her first solo run out to the temple, with a pair of Rodian antique smugglers, that she won’t notice they’ve put their heads together), Hux leans toward Ren again, so close that their shoulders nearly brush.</p>
<p>“Are you honestly going to meditate for two hours?” he murmurs, level with the drone of the motivator.</p>
<p>Ren’s gaze darts conscientiously back toward the guide, but he doesn’t turn his head. He leans in likewise, shakes his head minutely. “It shouldn’t take that long. I’ll sense the Darkness as soon as I set foot inside.”</p>
<p>There was once a time when that would have been the least comforting thing Ren could possibly say. Now, though, it sounds like progress. Like <em> resources </em>.</p>
<p>“And then?” Hux prompts.</p>
<p>“It should come back to me,” Ren says, flatly, simply. “As soon as I feel it, I’ll be able to control it.”</p>
<p>Hux can’t help it. “Because you’ve always been able to manage that brilliantly.”</p>
<p>Ren thins his lips, and his whole body tenses, as if suppressing some wave of emotion. “It’ll be different now,” he says, after a moment. He swallows, looks from Hux to their boots, his tattered uniform ones, Hux’s secondhand work ones. “I’ll…” he starts, but trails off into the buzz of the motivator. “I’ll be the only one in my head.”</p>
<p>Hux barely suppresses a dry snort of laughter. As if Ren, alone in his head, wouldn’t comprise an entirely different set of problems than before. As if that wouldn’t be more terrifying than every vision and voice and presence he’s ever felt inside his skull combined.</p>
<p>But the middle of a swamp is not the place for this conversation, and there could never be enough time to rehash the tangled contents of Ren’s brain, much less unravel them.</p>
<p>“I should hope so,” is all Hux says, then pivots to logistics.</p>
<p>Even whispering under the skiff’s motivator and the squelch of the water, this much is easy to establish: take care of Nahur and his guide, restock and refuel here on Bosthirda, then head in the direction of the Western Reaches.</p>
<p>“We should be able to pick up a decent ship on Serenno,” Ren continues, fingers drumming his thigh. “Maybe a heading.”</p>
<p>Hux blinks. “Serenno?” he retorts, all open scorn. “That’s...We had a <em> presence </em> there. We had public diplomacy.” </p>
<p>
  <em> Which you wouldn’t consider the dangers of because you spent eighty percent of your military career dressed up as your kept-hound grandfather. </em>
</p>
<p>“You and I never visited,” Ren replies, as if that’s the point here.</p>
<p>“No,” Hux says, slowly, indulgently, “but my face--“</p>
<p>“Wear your hood,” Ren interrupts. “We won’t find a ship under ten years old on one of these backwaters. Or a decent cybernetic.”</p>
<p>Behind them, the guide’s stream of chatter pauses. Hux’s fist balls on the bench beside him, but it’s probably no more than a natural beat.</p>
<p>“Ah. Yes,” he says, projecting over the motivator.</p>
<p>“Right?” Lurrill replies, still too enthusiastic. “The mangroves really contribute so much to--”</p>
<p>It’s easy enough to lose her thread in the buzz of the engine. </p>
<p>Hux filters both out with years of practice. He leans back toward Ren, dropping his voice again. “We could likely find a cybernetic here.”</p>
<p>Ren glances obliquely toward the skiff’s stern. “When they remember what happened, we’ll want to be a sector away.”</p>
<p>Hux scoffs. There was a time when some petty crime lord’s wrath was a thing that could be handled with firepower. With an efficient security apparatus and a speedy trial. However, that time is no longer now.</p>
<p>“Very well,” Hux allows. He isn’t fucking delusional; he understands caution better than Ren ever has. “But there are options besides Serenno if we have a full tank.”</p>
<p>Ren’s eyebrows lift minutely. “Such as?”</p>
<p>“Mogoshyn,” Hux returns. It isn’t a suggestion. “It’s closer, anyway.”</p>
<p>“No one will know anything there,” Ren counters. “We’ll have more than enough fuel to reach Serenno.”</p>
<p>He doesn’t get it.</p>
<p>He doesn’t fucking get what it’s like to have your face, your voice, your ideas and well-meant promises broadcast across the galaxy.</p>
<p>He may not resemble anyone or anything he’s been before. But Hux doesn’t have a closetful of former selves to take on and off at will.</p>
<p>“As I <em> said, </em> ” Hux retorts, each syllable heavy in the humid air, “Serenno is a <em> risk. </em>I’ll be recognized immediately from public messaging. We can’t attempt anywhere that was occupied.”</p>
<p>Ren scoffs. “Do you realize how much of the galaxy that precludes?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>Ren’s quiet for a moment, gaze dropping over the side of the skiff. If his side is anything like Hux’s, he’s watching the algae ripple. He’s catching his shadow but not his reflection. </p>
<p>“If we go to Serenno,” he drawls, looking back at Hux, “where the Order’s withdrawn <em> from </em> , someone on-world is more likely to know where they’ve withdrawn <em> to </em>.”</p>
<p>“I’m aware,” Hux lies. </p>
<p>He isn’t. He <em> wasn’t. </em></p>
<p>He hasn’t even entertained the possibility of setting foot on a planet where his face and voice featured in every third public service announcement, much less the sort of information that would be available there. </p>
<p>However, Ren has a point. It’s as aggravating as ever.</p>
<p>“I agree it makes sense,” Hux allows, “but there’s no chance I won’t be recognized.”</p>
<p>“We have to try,” Ren replies, with the definitive urgency that’s always been impossible to argue with. “We’re going.”</p>
<p>Hux smiles thinly. “I wish we could.”</p>
<p>“If we don’t go where Order personnel have been, we’ll never find a lead,” Ren goes on, in that same taut tone. It isn’t quite the old, rare excitement: the rush of a lead, a new tactic, a victory. But it’s close. “They could have tech still in the base. There’s a chance we could get the systems back online, then we’d be able to connect to the fleet tracker. Even if you’re deceased or whatever in the system, my accesses should still be good.”</p>
<p>“That’s irrelevant,” Hux replies, flatly, “because I would be recognized immediately.”</p>
<p>“You don’t know that--”</p>
<p>Hux rolls right over him. “And if they recognized me, how long do you think it would take to put together who you are?” He aims the kill shot. “To run Ben Solo’s biometric?”</p>
<p>Ren’s face shutters, and the thing that passes over it is more than the shadow of the mangrove they’re under, more even than his typical flash of dissociation. The blankness lingers, smoothing his face unnaturally, firming his mouth into a surgical incision.</p>
<p>He’s gone too long, staring at the standing water just above his boots. But he finally swallows, looks at Hux with something long-guttered in his eyes.</p>
<p>“Then you can stay behind and keep the ship running,” he says, instead of <em> fuck you </em>, ignoring the dead boy’s name. </p>
<p>“I’m the one with the blaster.” <em> And if you think I’m going to give it to you and stay aboard that ship without one, you’re less sane now than ever. </em></p>
<p>Ren sighs. He’s this rational, at least. “I need to work on that, too,” he says, finally, something suddenly exhausted in his tone. “Getting an actual weapon.”</p>
<p>“Yes, that would be helpful.”</p>
<p>Ren is silent for another long stretch. The motivator thrums in Hux’s teeth, and the guide prattles on about the erosive effects of algae on the temple’s infrastructure. Hux all but shouts back <em> “yes” </em> and <em> “I see” </em>at the appropriate pauses.</p>
<p>The skiff passes through a narrow gap in a curtain of trailing vines, close enough that the motivator ruffles their leaves.  On the other side, the algae deepens from red to violet.</p>
<p>Hux is about to be the adult here and remind Ren that--for now--he himself is the one who’s piloting. The final decision lies with him, and he’s already made it. </p>
<p>But Ren looks from the fog ahead back to Hux before the words can emerge. </p>
<p>“I could probably find something that will work for now on Mogoshyn,” he says. “Self defense-wise.” He tosses a glance toward Hux’s hip and the pistol barely concealed by his cloak’s bulk. “And we can definitely upgrade you from that fucking DL-18 there.”</p>
<p>Hux manages to tamp down his surprise. “If you don’t mind,” he says, to the blaster offer alone.</p>
<p>“If you don’t,” Ren returns.</p>
<p>He says nothing else, but the expectation lingers like a charge in the air between them, strung tight across the narrow space: the other half of the compromise. </p>
<p>“So we stop there first,” he allows, because Ren’s idea does make sense, “then try the base on Serenno if we can’t get a lead.”</p>
<p>Ren dips his head. “Okay.”</p>
<p>“All right.”</p>
<p>The skiff buzzes, and the water sighs.</p>
<p>Within minutes, Lurrill pauses mid-anecdote to announce they’re half an hour from the temple.</p>
<p>The glacier lingers in the pit of Hux’s stomach.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Within what must be the next half-hour, the trees begin to thin, giving way to a clearing where mist hovers low over the water. For a few liminal meters, nothing lies ahead but thick gray fog, opaque and indefinite. </p>
<p>Outside the cover of the trees, the temperature drops, and Hux pulls his cloak tighter around his shoulders. Next to him, Ren’s fingers go still on his knee, gaze fixed ahead, as if to will aside the fog. As if he could, now.</p>
<p>The skiff roars forward into nothing for what feels like far too long. Eventually, the fog too begins to thin.</p>
<p>The temple appears first as a single dark spire, breaking through shreds of mist, then its outline takes shape, as high as the tallest mangroves, three similar steeples framing a domed cathedral. The black stone it’s built of must have once required a tremendous amount of polishing: age and the bog’s acidic fumes have dulled the stone and stained the metallic dome a powdery turquoise. Vines trail up its western side, livid green.</p>
<p>Water churns noisily as the skiff pushes through thicker bands of algae near the shore of what must be an island or shoal. The air smells stagnant out here, vaguely musty, more noticeable as the skiff slows.</p>
<p>Thankfully, the guide’s gone silent. Perhaps she’s focused on a steady landing. </p>
<p>In Hux’s periphery, Ren leans forward. Hux resists the urge to ask him if he feels it yet: the Dark or the Force or whatever ghost of himself he’s buried too deep to exhume on his own.</p>
<p>The temple fills Hux’s entire line of sight now, its shadow falling over the skiff as it crunches against a rocky shoreline. Four meters of silt and gravel stretch between the skiff’s starboard side and the structure’s gaping entrance: a narrow arch through which--from this distance, anyway--nothing inside is visible.</p>
<p>The guide powers off the skiff, and the motivator’s roar fades into near-total silence. There’s no wind, no airflow. Water sucks at the sides of the skiff.</p>
<p>“You said two hours, right?” Lurrill asks from the stern. </p>
<p>Hux turns around, but Ren speaks first, taut and urgent. </p>
<p>“Yeah.” His fingers curl and uncurl in his lap. “At most.”</p>
<p>“Great,” the guide replies, settling against the pilot’s seat, “I’ll be right here. Oh--” She sits slightly forward, eyes darting between Hux and Ren. “--Mr. Nahur said you aren’t supposed to be taking out any artifacts. So I was supposed to, like, confirm that.”</p>
<p>“That won’t be a problem,” Ren returns, curtly, then stands smoothly to his feet despite the  wavering of the skiff. He steps over the side and onto the wet gravel in a single movement.</p>
<p>“Okay,” the guide says, brightly, but falters immediately. “May…the Force be with you?”</p>
<p>To Ren’s credit, he doesn’t react to that. </p>
<p>“Thank you,” Hux replies, probably incorrectly, then follows him up. The boat rocks under his feet, and he splays his hand across the seat for balance. He crosses it with cautious steps, pauses at the edge, calculating before splashing over the side.</p>
<p>To Hux’s hesitance, Ren extends his hand, silently imploring. Hux ignores him, and steps over without stumbling. His legs are gelatin for a moment, but seem to firm up within a step.</p>
<p>Ren nods toward the temple, and Hux follows him, boots crunching prominently in the quiet air. The temperature seems to have dropped again. It’s freezing up here. Gooseflesh crawls up Hux’s wrists, and he tenses his shoulders, only to shiver. He folds his arms against it.</p>
<p>Ren seems not to notice. His strides are steady, arms at his sides, eyes missile-focused on the door. </p>
<p>Hux shivers again. It won’t be long. So he said. </p>
<p>
  <em> You’re aware he’s said a lot of things-- </em>
</p>
<p>Hux severs the thought. It’s unfuckingproductive, and Ren’s almost walking faster than he is, which <em> doesn’t </em>happen.</p>
<p>Hux catches him easily, and they mount the three broad, cracked steps to the darkened archway all but synchronized. The temperature seems to drop again as they reach the top, as the entrance gapes in front of them, void-dark in the dulled stone. Chills run up and down Hux’s arms, matching the frost in the pit of his stomach. His heart thuds, slow but too loud, in his ears.</p>
<p>He doesn’t have to tell Ren to stop.</p>
<p>Ren looks up, studying the arch overhead as if to make out the half-faded runes at the top. “We should’ve brought a light,” he says, usefully, after a moment.</p>
<p>Hux shivers. “Well, then.”</p>
<p>“I’m sure there’s a skylight somewhere inside,” Ren says, shaking his head. “Doesn’t matter, anyway.” He takes a step forward, putting him halfway inside. He pauses, glances back over his shoulder at Hux, an unspoken beckon.</p>
<p>Hux means to move. To follow. The soldier left somewhere in his mind orders his feet to move, but something else--something anxious, childish, sniveling--freezes his muscles. His heart rate skyrockets, and he <em> can’t </em> go in there. Every instinct in his system blares <em> dangerdangerdangerdanger </em> , and he <em> can’t, </em>he oughtn’t--</p>
<p>“What?” Ren asks.</p>
<p>Hux shakes his head, which does less to clear it than the sounds of Ren’s voice. “Nothing,” he says, and steps ahead.</p>
<p>His breath comes shallow, and each step across the lusterless black flagstones feels like a lightyear. The whitish daylight fades to gray in the temple’s shadow, then a brightness behind as he passes under the arch and inside.</p>
<p>Hux blinks, eyes adjusting to the dimness. The daylight limns more of a long, smooth-sided corridor than it seemed to from outside. It reeks of limestone in here, the air stale and faintly mildewed. From indeterminable meters ahead, the drip of water onto stone echoes like percussion.</p>
<p>Ren’s pace slows somewhat, but he doesn’t stop moving. Hux follows. Their bootsteps soon reverb both ways down the corridor, drowning out the sound of the leak, and even Hux’s racing pulse.</p>
<p>Ren seems to gain, if not confidence, urgency, with each step, gaze still fixed straight ahead, probing the deepening darkness. </p>
<p>“Where are we headed?” Hux asks, as low as he can over the echoes. “Do you--”</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” Ren cuts him off. “I think--” He breaks off, abruptly, and with Ren, that’s the end of it. </p>
<p>“Thank you,” Hux returns, drily, but doesn’t press. No amount of prodding has ever gotten more out of him than he actually wants to say.</p>
<p>Ren ignores either him or the sarcasm. </p>
<p>The daylight fades behind them, but soon enough, a point of brightness appears around a twist of the corridor. It grows with each meter forward, even as their steps ring more hollowly, as if the sound were carrying higher, further. The white point of light broadens into a beam. </p>
<p>The passage doesn’t open so much as break abruptly into a higher chamber, a tunnel leading into a central hub like the spoke of a wheel. It’s a circular room, clearly beneath the dome. Shadow hides its sides, its exact perimeter, though the ray of light stabs down from a gap in the center of the dome.</p>
<p>Directly beneath it stands a black pedestal, worn with time, perhaps once an altar, from which the smoke curled up through the shaft above.</p>
<p>Hux shivers, and his pulse roars inexplicably in his ears. He means to come to a stop just past the edge of the tunnel, next to the wall, while Ren goes ahead, but his boot hits a slick spot on the floor. He gropes instinctively for purchase, and splays his hand against the wall, steadying himself. His breath goes ragged again. <em> Stay fucking balanced, can’t you do that fucking much-- </em></p>
<p>“What the hell?” Ren’s turned back toward him, voice thick with something genuinely baffled.</p>
<p>“<em> What </em>.” Hux retorts, dropping his hand. </p>
<p>“What did you do to the wall?”</p>
<p>“What did I--” Hux stops mid-syllable as his gaze falls to the spot he touched, </p>
<p>Silver characters branch out from it, a narrow band lighting up line by line around the chamber’s perimeter. It already reaches five meters out, more sparking to life with each of Hux’s loud heartbeats.</p>
<p>Ren’s eyes track it. “What…” he starts again.</p>
<p>“I simply touched it,” Hux replies, popping his lips. His fingers curl at his side, and his patience has drained all at once to the dregs. “Perhaps we ought to have tried that in the corridor.”</p>
<p>Ren’s gaze follows the band of runes the rest of the way around the room. It now fully encircles the chamber. The light glints in the dull facets of the pedestal in the center of the room.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Ren says, after a moment, “perhaps.” Then he turns from Hux, starts walking.</p>
<p>Hux stands by the wall, chafing his arms, as Ren slowly, almost methodically, loops the room’s perimeter, a dark shape covering the runes at intervals. He circles the room once, then starts again.</p>
<p>This has to be some sort of ritual. He must have read about it at one point, in all his religious studies that did him oh-so much good, in the end. Lose your connection to the Force? Find the nearest spiritual establishment, and walk around the altar four times while reciting this easy-to-remember spell in rhyming couplets. </p>
<p>But after the second lap, Ren comes to a heavy stop in front of Hux again, blocking the shaft of daylight like an eclipse.</p>
<p>Hux would ask him if it’s working, if he remembers the incantation or is having to freestyle. But the look on his face kills the snark on contact. His jaw is set, lip, but his chin is starting to crumple. Liquid glitters in his eyes. He says nothing, for a second.</p>
<p>“Well?” Hux prompts, as neutrally as he can manage. “Do you feel anything?”</p>
<p>Ren swallows, tips his chin toward the ceiling, then back at Hux. “No.”</p>
<p>It's freezing in here.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Deck</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>You may recognize some of the events of this chapter from Michael Moreci’s (masterpiece of a) comic, Star Wars Adventures #30/Loyalty Test, as well as references to Tom Taylor’s (equally fabulous) Age of Resistance series Hux comic.</p>
<p>Also, Happy 2021!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>(fifteen months ago)</b>
</p>
<p>Ord Pardron is the forty-ninth surrender this day-cycle.</p>
<p>Within minutes of ending the holocall that confirms it, the Mid-Rim world winks green on the starchart projected in front of Hux and Ren, secured with an unconditional surrender and the promise of trade negotiations. </p>
<p>Like all the rest.</p>
<p>Hux drops his hand from the projection to rest on the edge of the holotank, traces the plasteel ridges. He just changed twenty worlds’ statuses at once, everything they’ve received since the start of beta shift an hour ago. Even for the prolific weeks since Teth, it’s a high-volume day.</p>
<p>The entire galaxy webs blue from the holotank into the gray of the conference room, its arms studded by the red dots of unconquered worlds, the yellows of campaigns-in-progress, and the greens--by now an overwhelming majority--of Order territory.</p>
<p>“How many more to beat the record?” Ren asks, beside him. He’s had eyes for the galograph alone since they hung up with the Pardronian sultan, drinking it in like it’s his. (It is.)</p>
<p>(Almost.)</p>
<p>“More than we’ll get, unfortunately,” Hux replies, reaching up again to pull a stats window from the corner of the map. “We had…” He scrolls momentarily through the figures. “...two-hundred thirty-two five cycles after Starkiller.” </p>
<p>It was also four cycles into Ren’s reign, but they both know that had little to do with it. At that point, Ren was too lost in his head to celebrate it.</p>
<p>“Oh. Right,” he says anyway, like he knew but had simply forgotten the particulars. He tips his chin toward the stats window. “Scroll back up to the progress bar.”</p>
<p>Hux does. The lines of figures blur together until he’s reached the top of the window again. A simple meter, filled in blue to mark the war’s current status, stripes the panel, the percentage conquered listed below it.</p>
<p>Hux starts back as he reads the number. It’s--</p>
<p>“Holy hells,” he breathes. He jabs the projection again, refreshing it. There must be some kind of glitch, this must be too good to be true, it must-- </p>
<p>It loads the same number.</p>
<p>Somehow.</p>
<p>“<em>Yes</em>,” Ren murmurs, and a glance his way shows both corners of his mouth turned up. The smile is audible in his voice, too. It isn’t the typical smugness, it’s...delight. Rare but appropriate. “I thought that might have pushed us over.”</p>
<p>“Yes,” Hux echoes, blinking at the lines in front of him, the green constellation crisscrossing the galaxy, “yes, I suppose so. We’ve been skirting seventy percent for weeks, I simply didn’t realize…” He covers his own smile with his hand. </p>
<p>It’s perfect. It’s everything he’s ever wanted, the galaxy falling into place like a quadratic equation, like an inevitability.</p>
<p>And it’s <em> happening. </em></p>
<p>It’s been happening for the past three months, of course, between the slew of surrenders in the wake of Starkiller, the others that have trickled slowly in after legislative deliberation, and of course, the combat victories on worlds like Coruscant and Teth, among a thousand others. </p>
<p>What to think about it all--what to <em> do </em>about it all--has been increasingly easy to agree with Ren on. </p>
<p>“Shit.” Ren runs a disbelieving hand through his hair. “I didn’t either. I mean, I knew we were winning, but. Wow. Congratulations.”</p>
<p>“Likewise.” Hux entirely fails to purse his lips. “Utmost appreciation to the Sultan of Ord Pardron.”</p>
<p>“Right?” Ren’s smile broadens for a second, but he sobers just as quickly. “We need to cancel that follow-up call with him, though.”</p>
<p>“The one we just scheduled?” </p>
<p>“Yeah.” Ren drums his fingers on the holotank, then turns his back to it, pacing toward the wraparound viewport on the south side of the room. “It’s like I thought.”</p>
<p>“They’re still funding the insurgency after all?” Hux snags his datapad off the edge of the tank and follows him to the transparisteel. There’s always fucking something. “Then we got excited too soon.”</p>
<p>Ren looks between Hux and the blue-white graffiti of hyperspace. “Not necessarily,” he replies, with a slightly more self-satisfied tug at the corner of his mouth. “But they’re not just funding. They have a cache of weapons somewhere under...either the legislative chamber or the palace, maybe, that they’re channeling straight to the rebels.”</p>
<p>“Like on Calan,” Hux supplies.</p>
<p>The magistrate of Calan, a dedlanite-rich world that similarly “surrendered” three years before Starkiller, also had a clandestine stockpile of Resistance-destined weapons. He kept them flawlessly concealed until they wound up in the hands of the welcoming committee for the Order’s diplomatic contingency. </p>
<p>By the time reinforcements arrived, Hux’s gloves were burnt-through by plasma sparks. When the smoke cleared, Ren was bleeding out on the palace steps.</p>
<p>“It better not be,” Ren replies, drily. “He kept picturing it, so the advance warning should keep me out of intensive care.” He looks sidelong at Hux. “I know that’ll disappoint you.”</p>
<p>There was a time when Hux would have laughed at that. Now, he doesn’t gratify it with a response. He lifts his datapad to erase the meeting invitation from both his and Ren’s calendars. From there, he taps the fleet’s notification system, pulls up a blank kinetic action request.</p>
<p>“We’ll bomb the capital, then,” he says, no question in it. </p>
<p>It’s been the explicit threat since the Resistance cell on “neutral” Ord Pardron flew a sublight cargo vessel into the Order base there, in some sort of misguided retaliation for Starkiller. Unlike Calan, the interest on Ord Pardron is purely defensive: <em> Stop harboring terrorists, or we’ll make certain you have nowhere left to put them. </em></p>
<p>“Please,” Ren replies, evenly.</p>
<p>Hux starts punching in data. “Government targets only?”</p>
<p>“For a start,” Ren confirms. “That should be enough to keep our seventy percent.”</p>
<p>“No doubt,” Hux agrees.</p>
<p>For a few quiet seconds, Hux enters coords and verbiage. He lifts his own thumb to the bioreader, about to authorize the order. But Ren’s voice cuts through the procedure.</p>
<p>“Let me sign it.”</p>
<p>Hux looks up. Ren isn’t holding out a hand for the datapad, but his eyes are just as expectant, gripping Hux’s like a magnetic field. </p>
<p>Hux glances pointedly down at the screen, out the viewport, just to prove he can. “It’s a routine order,” he says. </p>
<p>“Still,” Ren insists, too casual.</p>
<p>Hux’s fingers tighten around the datapad. “I have the appropriate credentials for a manual approval.”</p>
<p>“I know you do.” Ren tilts his head with an air of shrugging.</p>
<p>But if he will hardly even leave Hux on the <em> Finalizer</em>, if he keeps him so close Hux can’t even <em> eat </em>alone, of course he’ll demand this. Even now. If it isn’t obvious that Hux has resigned himself to working with Ren, for now—letting a weapon like him win this war—that’s Ren’s fucking problem.</p>
<p>Still, now that he’s made a thing out of it, it’ll look far worse for Hux to keep resisting.</p>
<p>“You aren’t signing over the Order,” he points out with a scoff, passing him the datapad.</p>
<p>“So you say.”</p>
<p>It sounds like his typical deadpan, but he doesn’t look up like he does, with the spark in his eyes expecting a laugh or a parried remark. He scrolls steadily through the form, gaze darting as if to absorb every word. The starlines out the viewport toss a net of shadows across his face.</p>
<p>“Certain you don’t just want to detour there and run the Sultan through?” Hux asks, changing the subject as he reaches the end of the order.</p>
<p>The corner of Ren’s mouth twitches, reverting to shop talk as if he weren’t the one that stopped it. “I have more important sultans to run through.” </p>
<p>“Perfectly fair,” Hux returns, looking from Ren to the blue swirl outside, “though I don’t anticipate any sultans where we’re headed.”</p>
<p>“Disappointing,” Ren returns, drily, as he presses his thumb to the datapad’s bioreader. It chimes softly, and he hands it back to Hux, a green <em> Approved </em>window covering the screen.</p>
<p>“As far as I’m aware,” Hux continues, “there isn’t supposed to be much of anyone.”</p>
<p>“Except insurgents,” Ren verifies.</p>
<p>“I hope.”</p>
<p>If Ren can scan classified images off the top of a dignitary’s mind, it makes little sense that he wouldn’t be able to detect Resistance presence--<em> Jedi </em>presence, if that factors in--on any given world. But of course, nothing about his abilities has ever followed any intuitive pattern. It’s futile, by now, to complain about the inconsistency.</p>
<p>Besides, the tip about a possible Resistance base on the backwater at coordinates O-14.58--Vendaxa, according to the archives--seems as solid as any other. More than worth a stopover on the way to talks on newly-acquired Naboo. </p>
<p>Even with seventy percent of the galaxy settled, the remaining thirty will go infinitely quicker without a centralized insurgent movement to back uprisings, funnel weapons, blow up facilities, consume military resources… Et cetera. Ad absurdum.</p>
<p>But a single tip is a lightyear’s cry from the total stand-down of the Order’s counterinsurgency operations.</p>
<p>He’s about to confirm that Ren wants to follow standard tactics for deploying blindly into enemy terrain: namely, send overwhelming infantry numbers to counterbalance any home-turf advantage. The only question is whether Ren himself will want to lead them--</p>
<p>But Ren suddenly starts back from the transparisteel as if something smacked against it, shattering the thought.</p>
<p>Hux flinches on instinct, combat wiring blaring <em> danger, </em>in the instant before his conscious mind catches up. </p>
<p>Stars smear the void on the other side of the viewport, uninterrupted. The ship keeps moving.</p>
<p>There’s nothing there.</p>
<p>“Fuck,” Ren breathes, next to Hux. He inhales and exhales staccato, like he’s just finished a training sim. “Fuck.”</p>
<p>“What?” Hux asks, though it’s entirely futile. It somehow comes out both sharp and exhausted.</p>
<p>Instead of answering, Ren all but whirls away from the viewport. Hux turns in sequence, trying to follow his line of sight. He’s fixed on a point on the blank wall perpendicular to the galograph. A nondescript section of paneling. </p>
<p>He’s still rigid in Hux’s periphery, and a glance shows that <em> intent </em>expression, the listening strain knitting his forehead. His lips work soundlessly for a moment, then another.</p>
<p><em> What the </em> hell <em> is wrong with you? </em>congeals on the tip of Hux’s tongue. </p>
<p>Before it can emerge, though, Ren’s posture slackens all at once, like a pulley with its cable cut. Both of his hands go to his hair, and his breathing ratchets up again.</p>
<p>Hux gives him exactly five seconds to get it together. They don’t have time for this, not two hours out from a viable lead, not thirty percent of the galaxy away from <em> victory.  </em> They <em> haven’t </em> had time over the past several weeks--every time Ren’s gaze has drifted lightyears away, every time he’s added a new and dingier relic to the collection that started with the holocron. </p>
<p>Two minutes ago, he seemed to realize this--seemed to be <em> happy </em> about it. Now he’s gone. But it’s always been like this with him: peak to valley in a heartbeat. (It’s a liability.)</p>
<p>Hux inhales, pops his lips. “Are you finished?”</p>
<p>“Shit,” Ren says, which doesn’t answer the question. He does, however, lower his hands. They tremble at his sides.</p>
<p>“Well?” Hux prompts, softer, given his hands. “Supreme Leader?”</p>
<p>Ren looks up a beat too late at the title, with an expression so wounded Hux might as well have called him Ben. </p>
<p>Hux fills his silence, as usual. “Supreme Leader,” he repeats, “we were in the middle of a tactical discussion--”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Ren says, so quietly, so flatly it doesn’t feel like an interruption. “I don’t--” His eyes dart to the viewport, a point above Hux’s shoulder, then back. His hand strays back to his hair. “I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>He brushes past Hux to the door before Hux can ask what for this time.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Within the hour, Ren’s tracker pings in the gym, which is admittedly the healthiest coping mechanism in his narrow repertoire. </p>
<p>Not that Hux has seen the worst of it in the past several weeks: none of the isolation, the smouldering equipment, the ascetic self-flagellation, Snoke-style. By contrast, Ren’s been... if not better, at least functional. Cooperative (relatively speaking).</p>
<p>But the paranoia lingers, the constant suspicion. Even when Ren’s looking at Hux’s face, he’s looking over his shoulder.</p>
<p>It’s the trouble that comes with <em> knowing </em>Hux. Both what he wants—has wanted since he was sixteen years old—and what he’s capable of.</p>
<p>Ren may appreciate Starkiller, he may like Hux’s negotiating style. May share a deadpan comment or a meal with him, like in the past. (At the ebbing intervals when they’ve been able to see past tactical disagreements and Snoke’s bullshit for a week, a month, a season, a year.)</p>
<p>But Ren’s still dragging him to Coruscant, to Teth, to the field command center for every goddamn firefight that Ren himself leaves the ship for. </p>
<p>No matter how many worlds they conquer, the suspicion hangs between them like a ray shield: a translucent but impassable barrier. They can communicate through the hazy ion field, make out each other’s distorted outline, but there’s no crossing over.</p>
<p>Between this particular delusion and his worsened demons, Ren’s a rogue variable.</p>
<p>It’s troubling, therefore, when a rogue variable is still pinging in the gym <em> three </em>hours later. </p>
<p>Compulsively, Hux refreshes the tracker application from his position on the bridge, drumming the edge of his datapad as it reloads. </p>
<p>Ren aside, he’s been a little more wired with every parsec the ship crosses, strung taut between the surreal possibility of obliterating the source of almost every counterinsurgent cell in the galaxy, and the fact that this op--<em> recon </em> op, <em> be realistic </em>--therefore leaves no room for error. </p>
<p>But it doesn’t help that he hasn’t received so much as a read notification from Ren on any of the associated taskers or deployment orders. If Ren’s going to act like a brooding adolescent, he had better not mind when Hux signs off on this op.</p>
<p>Hux hits refresh again.</p>
<p>And now the tracker app is pinwheeling.</p>
<p>“General?”</p>
<p>
  <em> Fuck’s sake-- </em>
</p>
<p>He looks up from the datapad at Bolander, the deck officer on duty, at parade rest in front of him.</p>
<p>“Report, Commander,” he returns, flattening the tension from his voice.</p>
<p>Bolander dips her chin. “I wanted to inform you that our estimated arrival time is in one standard hour.”</p>
<p>Perfect. Brilliant. Absolutely fucking delightful.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Hux says, as his fingers stiffen against the datapad. “I understand all deployment preparations are complete?”</p>
<p>“Yes, sir,” Bolander replies, with another nod, “on the bridge side.”</p>
<p>“Excellent.” That much isn’t sarcasm. At least <em> something </em>is functioning properly. “Dismissed.”</p>
<p>“Yes, General.”</p>
<p>The datapad chimes as soon as she’s turned away, soft over the low hum of activity at the surrounding work stations. Ren--or his belt, technically--pings on the deck between his quarters and the gym. </p>
<p><em> Movement </em>. Some minute fraction of the tension between Hux’s shoulders unspools. He immediately pulls up their running chat window. </p>
<p><em> ETA 1 hour</em>, he sends. <em> Check your inbox<br/></em></p>
<p>
  <em>*Supreme Leader</em>
</p>
<p>Twenty minutes later, the read notification arrives, but nothing else.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>At precisely 1634 standard, the <em> Finalizer </em>judders out of hyperspace. </p>
<p>In front of the observatory hangs the forested world of Vendaxa, all brown-green wilderness, scuttled haphazardly by indigo pockets of sea. Starkly beautiful, but with an untamed quality that would suit the rebels. Perhaps allow them to burrow there.</p>
<p>(But if all goes well, they’ll soon be one with the landscape.)</p>
<p>DL-3381, commander of the 709th, comms that her troops are ready as soon as <em> you and the Supreme Leader order, sir, </em>and mentions offhand that there’s been no new intelligence on Resistance activity since last cycle.</p>
<p>A shame, but what they have remains enough to proceed with. </p>
<p>Even factoring out Ren--who’s presumably in his quarters playing with his relics, which are of course <em> far </em> more interesting than the war he’s winning--the 709th should be able to wipe out any Resistance presence on the planet below. And for anything that’s left or gets out of hand, the <em> Finalizer </em>is positioned overhead. Just out of eyeshot, cannons charged.</p>
<p>It’s probably <em> nothing-- </em></p>
<p>The war could <em> end-- </em></p>
<p>Too bad Ren’s going to miss it.</p>
<p>“Hold your departure for another fifteen minutes,” Hux tells the blue silhouette of DL-3381’s helmet. “I’d like to see you off personally.”</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Within minutes, Hux is <em> on. </em>Five decks below, trying to convey to a formation of hand-picked stormtroopers what’s at stake here.</p>
<p>The hangar gapes open behind him, relegating the deciduous planet below and the surrounding starscape to his periphery. A few meters away, a fully-prepped <em> Upsilon </em>-class purrs, warming the cold that drifts in from the vacuum outside.</p>
<p>He addresses DL-3381’s squadrons in clear language that both reiterates the Order’s overarching strategy and unmistakably links the mission they’re about to embark upon to its execution. No filler. No fluff.</p>
<p>It’s simple mathematics when the Resistance is this badly depleted. Standard tactics will be more than sufficient, no Force needed.</p>
<p>“If they are indeed hiding on Vendaxa,” Hux says, hands regulation-tight behind his back, “then we will pin them down, smother them with numbers, and the Resistan--”</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>The single syllable reverbs through the quiet of the hangar, final and definitive as a blaster bolt.</p>
<p>Hux pivots needlessly toward the sound. There’s only one person in this organization who would cut him off in the middle of an address. One person who <em> could </em>with impunity. He is also--as fortune would have it--the only person in the Order volatile enough to countermand a mission’s launch less than five minutes before it’s scheduled to commence.</p>
<p>(<em> After </em> having disappeared for half a shift.)</p>
<p>Ren crosses the hangar deck, treading heavy as always, then stops less than a meter from Hux. Addresses only Hux, as if the assembled troopers weren’t even here.</p>
<p>“<em> I </em>will finish the Resistance,” he says, in a tone that doesn’t dare Hux to question him, so much as announce a fact as immutable as the laws of thermodynamics.</p>
<p>Ice flash-freezes in the pit of Hux’s stomach. The void-cold seeps across a hundred meters of hangar and crawls up his arms.</p>
<p>Hux babbles some feeble protest, barely hearing himself over the static in his ears.</p>
<p>This.</p>
<p>This fails to compute. Ren can’t mean to do this alone. And if he meant to, why the <em> hell </em> didn’t he suggest this bullshit four hours ago and give Hux ample time to argue him down. The first mission he wants to leave Hux shipside for, and it’s a dramatic method of suicide <em> . </em></p>
<p>This may just be a small cell, but the Jedi has proven she’ll be ample work for Ren, even without an entire army behind her. Facing down all of them is nothing short of suicidal. It’s sheer madness, it’s--</p>
<p>Nightmares and ruined consoles.</p>
<p>Relics, insomnia.</p>
<p>Blood soaking the snow on Starkiller.</p>
<p>
  <em> “Bring me down to him.” </em>
</p>
<p>(<em> “I’m sorry.” </em>)</p>
<p>It’s the fact that his phantoms or demons or delusions--whatever the <em> fuck </em>they are that eat him alive, they’ve apparently convinced him he’s impervious to supercharged plasma.</p>
<p>And it’s going to fucking get him killed.</p>
<p>Never mind that his usurpation deserves it.</p>
<p>Never mind that if he goes down there and gets himself martyred, his title will fall indisputably to his second-in-command.</p>
<p>It’s still--</p>
<p>It’s completely intolerable, for reasons Hux’s heart is thudding too fast and loud to stop and analyze.</p>
<p>The tinnitic assertion that <em>Kylo</em> <em>Ren is going to die </em>drowns out all other coherent thought. </p>
<p>Kylo Ren is going to die, and there is now no plan nor scheme nor strategy--no version of reality--in which the galaxy falls without him. (In which Hux celebrates alone.)</p>
<p>Ren’s sharp response machetes the tangle of panic. He’s trying to put a threat in it--the shadow of <em> or else </em> --but Hux is worlds past buying it. Ren cuts dead eyes to the <em> Upsilon </em>-class. “My shuttle’s already prepared.”</p>
<p>He’s going to get on the shuttle. </p>
<p>He’s going to get on the fucking shuttle <em> by himself </em>and land on that planet and get blown to shreds, and nothing and no one--in this room or the galaxy entire--can stop him when he’s talking like this, with his mystic’s defiance and his commander’s authority.</p>
<p>He’s going to get on the shuttle. </p>
<p>Nothing can change that. </p>
<p>“Then I will go with you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Within the hour, Hux follows Ren down the shuttle’s ramp into the shade of a temperate rainforest. A pale finger of afternoon sun stabs between thin tree trunks, casting their shadows deep and green across the forest floor.</p>
<p>The daylight warms little beneath the thick canopy of leaves, and it’s all Hux can do not to pull his coat closer against the chill. The earthy musk of damp wood hangs on the air.</p>
<p>“The Resistance would have been alerted to our presence and given the chance to escape,” Ren says, not missing a beat of the argument Hux kept up for the duration of the flight down.</p>
<p>It’s almost as if Ren <em> wanted </em>to be stopped from attempting this alone. Which is of course the only reason Hux volunteered to come: additional facetime to talk him out of this madness. </p>
<p>Hux didn’t expect to have to leave the shuttle. However, the persuasion has yet to go according to plan.</p>
<p>“The troopers are <em> trained </em>for this,” he points out, acidly.</p>
<p>Ren’s lip curls. “The Resistance is an empty husk. Ending them doesn’t require the whole army. Besides--” His gaze drops briefly to the moss underfoot. “I have unfinished business with one of them.”</p>
<p>Whether he means the Jedi or his mother, Hux would rather not know.</p>
<p>Hux forces the corners of his mouth upward. Yes, it’s a sneer. “Let’s just be sure we don’t allow personal feelings to cloud our judgment.”</p>
<p>“Like you’re one to talk about personal feelings,” Ren scoffs. He levels his gaze at Hux. “How long have you wanted to be in command?”</p>
<p>And here it is. Of course. At least he’s finally articulating it, rather than sticking to the insinuations. But of course Hux wants the throne.</p>
<p>Of course.</p>
<p>Obviously.</p>
<p>In a perfect universe.</p>
<p>Hells, Hux hinted as much to him when the throne was still <em> Snoke’s </em>--calculating, as he took in the festering electrical burns across Ren’s back; fuming, over budget cuts; half-drunk, once, and dreaming.</p>
<p>There’s honestly no reason for Ren to think that’s changed. It hasn’t, of course--not in the slightest--but he can at least acknowledge that Hux is a realist.</p>
<p>That in order for either of them to succeed in anything they’re trying to accomplish here, Ren has to share more of the burden than he does now. <em> (Has to order you less.) </em></p>
<p>Hux sighs. Feigns subservience. “Never, Supreme Leader.” He pops his lips. “I only hope my loyalty earns me the same in return.”</p>
<p>Even just shutting up with the constant suspicions would be a tremendous improvement at this point.</p>
<p>“That’s where you’re mistaken,” Ren says, over the hiss of the retracting ramp. “I don’t need to be loyal to my inferiors.”</p>
<p>Hux openly rolls his eyes.</p>
<p>This mission is really off to a superb start.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>The last time the two of them were alone on the surface of a hostile world, it was through no choice of Hux’s. </p>
<p>On the way back to Starkiller from a clandestine arms deal, their shuttle <em> literally </em>caught fire in the middle of hyperspace. It proceeded to crash onto the nearest planet like a meteor, disintegrating on impact. Ren was the only reason Hux survived the wreck, then after, he’d jumped inexplicably between Hux and, well, some carnivorous fucking fauna. </p>
<p>Hux had no idea what to do with any of it. (Except, of course, insult Ren and call him by the name that isn’t his.)</p>
<p>And whyever would things be better <em>now</em>.</p>
<p>Silence settles between them as they walk, filled only by the soft thud of their boots against the dry earth, the whisper of a cold breeze in the leaves overhead.</p>
<p>Hux chafes briefly at his arms as they emerge into a clearing. Afternoon sunlight throws a pool of light onto the forest floor, dappling across creeping roots and glossy ferns.</p>
<p>“Tell me what you know about this planet and the Resistance presence here,” Ren says, after a few moments.</p>
<p>Hux blinks. He ought to be grateful for the change of subject. (To literally <em>anything</em> but the don’t-you-want-me-dead bullshit.) But what’s he supposed to do, rehash the conversation they started having after the Ord Pardron call? </p>
<p>Before Ren sensed whatever he thought he sensed, then emerged from his quarters determined to obliterate the entire Resistance single-handedly.</p>
<p>Hux bites back a litany of unprofessional responses. <em> Were you </em> that <em> distracted? You were going to come down here </em> alone <em> and finish off the insurgents without so much as basic awareness of the terrain? </em></p>
<p>But it’s no use pointing that out. Ren’s sobered by now, anyway. Or is starting to.</p>
<p>Hux admits what he did a few hours ago: that there’s little to go on here but a well-sourced tip. </p>
<p>Which is why this was a task for troopers, not the Supreme fucking Leader. He’s a sublime weapon, but he isn’t the only one Hux possesses. He and his abilities won’t win the war on their own. And no one but Ren himself is asking them to.</p>
<p>“Because,” Hux elaborates, and it isn’t as if he can <em> help </em>the way his voice sharpens, even as his cadence slows to something Ren would have once called condescending, “leadership is trusting the people you lead to do their jobs.”</p>
<p>“Don’t push it,” Ren snaps back.</p>
<p>“Of course, Supreme Leader.”</p>
<p>Another step forward takes them out of the daylight, back under the shadows between the trees.</p>
<p>“If you want my trust,” Ren says, blase, “you’re going to have to earn it.”</p>
<p>Holy fuck.</p>
<p>That’s it.</p>
<p>It’s the same bullshit every cycle, with slight variations in wording.</p>
<p>
  <em> “Hux wants me dead, Hux is actively plotting my assassination. It isn’t as if we’ve been working together for three months during which he has indicated nothing of the sort, or anything.” </em>
</p>
<p>That’s fucking <em> it. </em></p>
<p><em> “ </em> I’ve been loyal to the First Order my <em> entire life </em>!” Hux blurts back.</p>
<p>Rage sparks in Ren’s gaze. “And I sacrificed everything I had for—“</p>
<p>He’s interrupted by a thud from behind the treeline. A branch cracks. An inhuman wail pierces the air.</p>
<p>Hux whirls toward the sound as a massive shape bursts through the treeline, scattering leaves. Some sort of megafauna. Some sort of monster. </p>
<p>The creature’s smooth skin glistens livid green, its underbelly sickly pale. Its mouth opens wide, baring short, sharp teeth like a Rodian fly-trap’s. It has six legs, each ending in a crustacean pincer, which stab the ground with each step. It reeks of rot and salt, as if it just crawled out of brackish water.</p>
<p>Hux’s pulse skyrockets, and he jumps back on adrenaline. <em> Why do you ever leave the ship, every time you leave the ship it’s some shit like this, every goddamn </em>time—</p>
<p>He yells to Ren that they should <em> run</em>, even as the creature screeches again, lunges toward them.</p>
<p>But Ren stays put. “You should run.”</p>
<p>And Hux would. He would, but he’s already several meters back, and the soles of his boots weigh a kiloton. He’s rooted to the ground. The blood pounds in his ears, and he can’t move, can’t think.</p>
<p>The thing screeches. It’s high-pitched. It rends the air. Its movements ruffle the foliage around it. Its pincers break the damp earth.</p>
<p> Ren steps in front of Hux. Into its path.</p>
<p>His saber crackles to life at his side, the faintest whiff of ozone under the monster’s reek. Ren charges the creature, which is what Ren does. </p>
<p>Hux’s pulse thunders in his ears.</p>
<p>The amphibian stabs down with one of its knife-edge pincers. Ren ducks away but immediately tries another blow, a dark, lithe shape against the creature’s harsh coloration, its rigid arthropod joints.</p>
<p>
  <em> Do something do something help him run get out your gun get out of here what are you, useless— </em>
</p>
<p>Hux’s hand goes to his blaster, but what the fuck is he supposed to do, shoot at the thing and agitate it? It’s impossible to know where to aim for a kill shot, and missing will just piss it off. </p>
<p>
  <em> You’re going to stand here, you’re just going to stand here with your hand on your fucking pistol-- </em>
</p>
<p>The thing screeches, jabs down again. The claw pierces the earth with a thud; vibrations ripple through the ground. It missed Ren.</p>
<p>His saber hisses cinders onto the claw-pocked ground. He’s muttering something to it, shit-talking like he does. He’s an idiot.</p>
<p>The creature lunges toward him, forelegs groping the air like a mantis. Ren swipes at its abdomen, but it parries first. He staggers backward, scuffing dirt. He’s going to get impaled. He’s going to get fucking impaled, and then what will Hux <em> do-- </em></p>
<p>Ren’s losing ground. The amphibian hisses, rearing up enough to expose its underbelly. Its forceps open and shut. Its three eyes glitter in the dying light. </p>
<p>Ren slices at it. Slices air.</p>
<p>The creature swipes down. </p>
<p>Ren dodges. Not fast enough.</p>
<p>The claw hits his body with a sound like beating a rug. He falls. </p>
<p>
  <em> Fucking shit, fucking shit-- </em>
</p>
<p>His lightsaber skitters out of his hand, stirring dust.</p>
<p>The thing screeches, throaty, falsetto. It rears up. It looms over him, pincers batting the air, teeth bared, gnashing. It’s going to pin him to the ground. Run its claw through his ribcage.</p>
<p>Hux’s breath comes staccato. Ren needs him. He pulls and cocks his blaster in a single reflexive motion. Ren needs him.</p>
<p>Ren <em> needs </em>him and isn’t it hilarious. Ren, who likes him best within saber’s reach. Ren, who’s dragged him to the surface of every world but this one. Ren, who doesn’t trust the man with a hitlist thirty years running.</p>
<p>And it’s stupid, it’s stupid, but it’s the only way to clarify this. On a whim, on impulse, on adrenaline, Hux points the blaster at Ren. The muzzle glitters in the scant light. </p>
<p>Fear kindles instantly in Ren’s eyes, but he’s silent. Something deeper, darker accompanies it. A sorrow like the space between the stars. The sorrow of <em> I knew it. </em> Of <em> I know you. </em></p>
<p>Hux scoffs. “You don’t think you can trust me?”</p>
<p>Ren’s hairline fills the pistol’s sights. </p>
<p>Ren’s hairline fills the pistol’s sights, and it would be so easy.</p>
<p>It would.</p>
<p>If any of this could be done alone.</p>
<p>Hux points the blaster at Ren. </p>
<p>And points it away.</p>
<p>He doesn’t know where to put a kill shot, so he does the next best thing. </p>
<p>The pistol’s mild recoil vibrates through his arm. The plasma whistles red through the twilight, and a branch above the creature cracks as if struck by lightning. It falls on the thing’s back with a heavy crunch.</p>
<p>The monster wails.</p>
<p>It buys enough time for Ren to get back on his feet. He extends a hand, and his saber flies back into it. He runs at the thing again, though he’s got to be bruising already. (Of course he is--but he’s fought with live ammo embedded in his liver.)</p>
<p>The damage from the branch slows the creature enough that Ren can get a blow in. The saber sears its exoskeleton, and it howls. Its forelegs drop hard to the forest floor, supporting it. </p>
<p>Hux’s chest heaves. He tightens his grip on the blaster. He’ll fire another round if he has to, aim at the saber-wound--</p>
<p>The creature turns tail. <em> Thank fuck. </em>Its bright silhouette disappears into the shadows between the trees. The thudding of its steps reverbs faintly through the ground, then fades entirely.</p>
<p>Ren’s breath comes ragged as he catches it, making his way back to Hux’s side. His eyes linger on Hux’s, and he knows what he saw. What Hux could have done. What Hux <em> didn’t </em>do. And perhaps it’s a cruel object lesson, but it’s the only kind Ren understands, and the only kind Hux knows how to give. (Never mind that he stepped between Hux and the monster.)</p>
<p>Hux knows this look from the wreck of <em> Supremacy. </em>The throne room, the burning tapestries, the cold and distant constellations.</p>
<p>Then, Ren opened his eyes as if Hux had shaken him awake, and he <em> knew </em> . It was in the way he held Hux’s gaze, the vulnerable thing in it, and for a heartbeat Hux thought he was a dead man. But Ren said <em> what happened, </em> Ren said <em> let’s finish this. </em></p>
<p>Now, he says nothing.</p>
<p>“Well then,” Hux says, to fill the silence, “I don’t believe that beast will be bothering <em> us </em>again.”</p>
<p>Ren scoffs, and a bit of the sadness clears. “Unless he’s gone to rally his friends.”</p>
<p>“Ever the optimist,” Hux returns. He tucks his blaster back into his coat, pulls it tighter. It’s cooler in the shade, as the fight-or-flight wears off. “I also think,” he continues, drily, “it’s safe to say the Resistance will not be occupying a planet inhabited by giant, bloodthirsty monsters.</p>
<p>“No, they won’t,” Ren sighs. “Which means we’ve wasted our goddamn time.”</p>
<p>Hux turns on his heel at that, nods back in the direction they came, toward the ship and the orange shafts of sunlight visible through the treeline. Ren catches up with him easily, which is just as well--Hux isn’t confident about all the turns they made, and all the trees look the same.</p>
<p>The mirk brightens with every step, until the trees thin, and the clearing where Ren put down the shuttle opens around them. The sky blazes overhead, sunset bands of orange, gold, red, deep violet. </p>
<p>The harsh light glitters on the shuttle’s chassis. Its folded wings throw a long avian shadow over the opposite treeline.</p>
<p>Ren approaches the shuttle’s closed hatch, and it opens with a hydraulic hiss at his biometric. He loops down to the end of the ramp, to Hux’s side, as the steam clears. He looks from Hux to the shuttle’s dark interior. </p>
<p>Hux has to say something, in the moment of quiet before he steps aboard that shuttle and checks his notifications. Before they’re back on the bridge, in the conference room, back eating dinner in relative silence.</p>
<p>“Our time wouldn’t be wasted, Supreme Leader, if you and I worked better together as a <em> team </em> .” <em> If you would listen to me. If you would do as I say. </em>“We want the same thing, after all.”</p>
<p>The stark lighting shows out the dark brown of Ren’s hair, the gold of his irises. He studies Hux, carefully impassive. “Trust is earned.”</p>
<p>“I believe I’ve earned yours.”</p>
<p>Ren’s lip quirks in the heartbeat before he turns toward the shuttle. “For now,” he says. “General.”</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Inside, Ren stops in the small officers’ canteen on the shuttle’s upper deck. He pulls open the conservator and extracts two bottles of water. He makes to toss the second one underhanded in Hux’s direction, but it levitates off of his hand instead, arcs through the dim cabin, and hovers in front of Hux.</p>
<p>Hux plucks it out of the air, and whatever invisible cord was holding it seems to rescind. “Thank you.”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Ren replies, nodding for Hux to go ahead down the passage. “So will this delay us that badly getting to Naboo?”</p>
<p>“I wasn’t aware you were in a hurry.” Hux hefts his water from hand to hand. </p>
<p>Ren snorts. “I wouldn’t put it like that. More like…” He trails off briefly as they reach the cockpit, blinking in the glaring light.  Hux gropes toward the co-pilot’s seat, is settled before he picks back up.</p>
<p>“More like trying to stick to the schedule.” Ren taps the shuttle’s navicomp, powers up the engine. His water is balanced on the dash. “I thought you’d approve of that.”</p>
<p>“Oh, I do,” Hux agrees, strapping in. “It’s just a pleasant surprise.”</p>
<p>“Hilarious.” Ren punches the controls, reaches overhead for the gear shift. “I understood you wanted to get along now.”</p>
<p>“Haven’t we nearly been?” Hux tries.</p>
<p>“When you aren’t offering unconstructive criticism,” Ren replies, and <em> that </em>is unmistakably his deadpan. “Or threatening my life.”</p>
<p>Hux spreads his hands. “You get to pick one or the other.”</p>
<p>Ren actually laughs. “This is going to be <em> so </em>new and different for us.”</p>
<p>“I’m willing to try.”</p>
<p>Ren’s quiet for a moment, as the shuttle’s thrusters hum to life. “Me too,” he says, quietly. He pulls up on the yoke, aiming for the indigo above the sunset, the band that is open space, is the mission, is home. </p>
<p>The trees shrink rapidly out the viewports, and the transparisteel auto-tints against the acrylic glare outside. </p>
<p>“Look,” Ren says, after a silent minute, eyes on the horizon, “we’ve got to prepare our priorities for this summit. It’s going to take half of gamma shift at this point.”</p>
<p>“Probably.” Hux picks at the water bottle’s label, unsure what he’s getting at.</p>
<p>“It might be easier in my quarters,” he continues, nonchalant. “I’d rather not sit in a conference room till oh three hundred.”</p>
<p>Hux blinks. This would at least appear to indicate he hasn’t <em> wrecked </em> his quarters again. “Perfectly fine by me.”</p>
<p>“Okay.” Ren cuts his eyes at him. “So we’re getting somewhere.”</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s been over a month since Hux was last in Ren’s small receiving area: just a standard-issue black sofa and armchair tucked into his sparse ensuite. Then, they’d been pristine, unused since the <em> previous </em>time Hux was in here, over a year ago. </p>
<p>Now, the sofa is buried in the rubbish of the past four weeks: at least a dozen shabby artifacts, looted from museums, shaman’s huts, and excavated ruins. Corrosion creeps up the sides of cracked metal prisms. Clouded-over moonstones and opals reflect no light. Several armor pieces look worse off than Vader’s mask. The Coruscant holocron isn’t here--it must still be in his bedroom.</p>
<p>“Well,” Hux starts, looking from the scrap-heap to Ren, “if there’s isn’t space--”</p>
<p>“There’s space.”</p>
<p>Ren extends a hand toward the artifacts, and they lift off the cushions as if suspended on invisible string. He flicks his wrist toward the kitchenette, open on the other side of the room.</p>
<p>“I swear it’s more organized than it looks,” he says as they drift through the air, settle on a countertop.</p>
<p>Hux raises his eyebrows, nonplussed. “These aren’t <em> my </em>chambers.”</p>
<p>“But you’re still judging me.”</p>
<p>“I thought you couldn’t read my mind.”</p>
<p>“Don’t have to,” Ren returns, then crosses over to his armchair and nods to the sofa. “Go ahead.”</p>
<p>Hux checks the upholstery for lingering dirt, flakes of rust, toxic residue. It looks clear, so he fishes out his datapad, sets it down on the endtable, then shrugs out of his coat. He grabs the tablet as soon as he sits, checking the notifications he started clearing on the ride back.</p>
<p>Ren carried his datapad in from the shuttle, and he’s reviewing something too, scrolling slowly. He has one ankle slung on his knee, foot bouncing in Hux’s periphery. </p>
<p>Hux gives him a few moments. He’s the Supreme Leader, he ordered this meeting, he’ll initiate when he’s ready. (Won’t he?)</p>
<p>Silence stretches between them. Whatever he’s looking at must be critically important. </p>
<p>Hux scrolls and tries to focus, but that <em> thing </em> ’s screech echoes in the quiet of his mind, above the hum of the cooling unit overhead. It charged him. <em> Them.  </em></p>
<p>And it hits him.</p>
<p>He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t have made it back to the ship. He should be glassy-eyed on the forest floor, blood soaking black into the dirt from a puncture wound to the abdomen.</p>
<p><em> But Ren- </em>-</p>
<p>One moment Hux is his ambitious lackey, the next he’s between Hux and the nearest feral carnivore. (It isn’t the first time.)</p>
<p>
  <em> He needs you, obviously. You’re a resource to be preserved. </em>
</p>
<p>Yes.</p>
<p>Right.</p>
<p>Hux flicks a standard personnel report into a backup folder. Ren still isn’t saying anything. At this rate it will be alpha shift before they’re done, and every talking point in the known universe is useless if you’re too sleep-deprived to make any sense.</p>
<p>He looks up, and Ren has, too.</p>
<p>“Naboo,” he starts, at the same time that Ren says, inexplicably, “Thank you.”</p>
<p>Hux lowers his datapad. “What?”</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Ren repeats, in a tone that would have been neutral through the vocoder. His gaze drops to his boots, then back to Hux. “You got us out back there, and you-- Showed a lot of restraint.”</p>
<p><em> Far too much</em>, Hux has to bite back. Ren won’t laugh at it with this look on his face. They already covered this, already settled it. </p>
<p>Hux would rather talk business,</p>
<p>“I wasn’t going to shoot you,” he says, tersely. <em> Let’s just get on with the war. </em></p>
<p>“I know that now.” Ren rakes a hand through his hair. <em> Now </em>takes the slightest emphasis. “So thank you.”</p>
<p>The gratitude.</p>
<p>The <em> gratitude. </em></p>
<p>It’s so classically <em> Ren </em> that Hux ought to start laughing. </p>
<p>Peak and valley. Storm and silence after. They’re arguing, laughing, planning one cycle, one <em> moment, </em>but as soon as Hux shows the slightest concern for him, it’s as if it were the first time anyone ever had.</p>
<p>It was annoying before--silenced Hux beside field stretchers and medbay beds, on frozen worlds and this very sofa--but it should be ideal now: He saves your life, and you hold him at gunpoint--yet somehow <em> he’s </em> the one thanking <em> you. </em></p>
<p>It’s a textbook maneuver, flawlessly executed. It should feel more satisfying.</p>
<p><em> (He saved your </em> life<em>, then you held him at </em> gunpoint <em> .) </em></p>
<p>And what’s he supposed to say,<em> thank </em> you <em> for not letting me die, either? I’m relieved to know I’m indispensable? </em></p>
<p>“Of course,” Hux replies instead, and leaves off <em> sir </em>. He sets his datapad on the end-table, then meets Ren’s eyes, twisting his lips into something that probably isn’t a smile. He would prefer to drop this, but Ren-- Ren needs nothing but reassurance.</p>
<p>Hux pops ih slips. “Do I truly create the impression that I’m about to overthrow you at any moment?”</p>
<p>Ren puts down his datapad as well, the edges of their tablets nearly touching. </p>
<p>“You have a track record,” he says after a moment, almost dry. “Your fa—“ He corrects himself: “the Commandant, Brooks, all those other Imps you had Opan take care of…” He trails off, eyes drifting to the darkness on the other side of the room. “You’re loyal to the Order. Not— A person.”</p>
<p>Hux bristles.“Yes,” he agrees, crisply, “I removed every one of them for the good of the Order.”</p>
<p>Ren swallows. “Wouldn’t it be the same with me?” His voice is like dried clay, brittle, if not yet splintered.</p>
<p>Hux raises his eyebrows. “You think you’re bad for the Order?”</p>
<p>“You do.”</p>
<p>Hux digs his fingers into the upholstery. Kylo Ren, telling you what you think.</p>
<p>“I consider you a valuable asset,” Hux replies. “You know that.”</p>
<p>Ren swings down his ankle, plants his feet on the floor. An edge rises in his voice. “I know you consider me unfit to lead.”</p>
<p>“It isn’t that.” Hux resists the urge to break eye contact, even though it isn’t a lie. With the lights at eighty percent, Ren’s pupils disappear. Hux inhales, holds his gaze. “Even if it does…” He pauses, fumbling for verbiage. “...<em> concern </em> me when you’re seeing ‘visions’ and spacing out, and...trying to take on guerrilla contingents single-handed.”</p>
<p>Ren sighs, drags a hand through his hair. “You don’t understand.”</p>
<p>Hux doesn’t have to understand to know it’s irrelevant. A distraction at best and a detriment at worst. More noticeable now than when Snoke was here, training him—perhaps—to process and control it.</p>
<p>But Hux is enough of a diplomat to know now isn’t the time for that particular shouting match.</p>
<p>“I don’t understand,” he confirms, and stops at that. “So like I said, I’m simply asking for your cooperation.”</p>
<p>Ren purses his lips, and his eyes roam Hux’s face like they do, observant and imploring, as if scanning complex readouts for some elusive signal.</p>
<p>This look. That naked, seeking thing. It’s the only real explanation as to why Ren wouldn’t summarily execute the man he feels he can’t even trust with his own ship.</p>
<p>Hux still doesn’t know what to do with it. With him. He’s about to change the subject, reach for his datapad, and hide behind the first graphic he can project between them.</p>
<p>But Ren finally speaks. “I want to trust you so badly,” he says, softly, as if his trust were some sleeping animal he feared to wake. His eyes drop to their boots, the ten centimeters of glossy flooring between them. </p>
<p>“You and I,” he continues, even softer. “We don’t have anyone else.”</p>
<p>It’s true in every possible sense. It always has been. </p>
<p>Hux’s relations are dead or unknown to him. Ren’s family only wants a version of him that never existed, and Snoke wanted a version that never will. Friends are out of the question, and lovers, well. If Ren wanted them, either, Hux would have observed it over seven years living in the same corridor.</p>
<p>In seven years, Hux knows for an indisputable fact that he is the only being to ever sit on this sofa. </p>
<p>He lifts the corners of his mouth. “Then shall we attempt this?”</p>
<p>Ren matches his smile, impossibly rare. “Okay,” he says, inhaling. He snags his datapad off the endtable again. “Okay. Naboo.” He taps long enough to pull up the running galograph, then puts it back down.</p>
<p>The galaxy hangs between them, blue light caught in the endtable’s surface. White highlighting flags the meters in the top corner.</p>
<p>“Update first.” Hux pinches to expand the window, absorbs the stats, the percentage change since the map was last viewed. ”<em> Er’Kit </em> ...” he reads. “ <em> Hemei system </em>…”</p>
<p>“<em> Metellos</em>,” Ren finishes, then taps the progress bar. “We’re getting there.”</p>
<p>Hux stiffens his upper lip, to little avail. “So we are.”</p>
<p>Three more worlds have fallen.</p>
<p>The relics glitter behind Ren’s head.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Spiders</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>A couple of canon-adjacent content warning at the end of the chapter!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>(fifteen months ago)</b>
</p>
<p>“You’re supposed to be glad-handing.”</p>
<p>Two cycles after the Vendaxa fiasco, Ren nods to the seething mass of Nabooians that fills the open-air portico. Against the blare of brass instruments, the screeching of strings, raucous laughter and the distracting hum of conversation, his voice is a faint signal.</p>
<p>Hux forcibly tunes out the static. “You too,” he replies, looking from Ren to the crowd. “Supreme Leader.”</p>
<p>“We’ve talked for two rotations,” Ren says. “I don’t have anything else to say to them.”</p>
<p>“So what makes you think I <em> would </em>?”</p>
<p>Ren shrugs, leaning against the column behind him, arms folded across his chest. It’s indecorous, of course. Not that Hux can be fucked to care.</p>
<p>The conclusion of an extremely lucrative trade summit with sector leadership unfortunately coincided with Naboo’s annual spring holiday, the Festival of...Glad Travels? Pleasant Arrival? Something. At any rate, there was no diplomatic way to decline, and it was supposed to provide additional networking hours. </p>
<p>In theory. </p>
<p>According to the aide that booked it.</p>
<p>Instead, Hux and Ren have spent the past hour on the edge of the crowd, trying to generate even more diplomatic pleasantries.</p>
<p>Hux keeps oscillating between attempting to motivate himself to put forth the effort, and calculating the earliest he--<em> we-- </em>can leave while maintaining some semblance of courtesy. It isn’t that he can’t turn it on when necessary--he just has, for two rotations--but it’s always unnatural.</p>
<p>And here, now--when they’ve spent two rotations carefully extracting everything they need from this entire sector--there’s little incentive left to force it.</p>
<p>As for Ren, he’s, well. </p>
<p><em> Ren </em>.</p>
<p>His diplomatic approach consists of flicking his wrist whenever any given dignitary attempts to lowball the Order. Ten percent of export revenues? His gloved hand moves in his lap, and something gutters in the negotiator’s eyes, and fifteen percent will be <em> just perfect. </em></p>
<p>Hux obviously has no complaints.</p>
<p>“You always have something to say,” Ren’s replying, in a tone that doesn’t exactly make it an insult. “You’re my chief diplomat. You’re supposed to go kiss babies. Or whatever.”</p>
<p>Hux scoffs. Under any circumstances but the wake of Vendaxa, he’d ask if Ren had pulled that strategy from his mother’s playbook. As things are, he’s trying to behave. He adjusts his coat cuff.</p>
<p>“Would you care to provide me with talking points?”</p>
<p>“Not really.”</p>
<p>Hux pops his lips and scans the pavilion. White marble columns uphold a buttressed roof, carved vines snaking up their sides. Crackling braziers dot the gaps between them, a barrier against the night air. Comfortable warmth leaches from the nearest one through Hux’s sleeve.</p>
<p>The crowd itself is a nebulous swirl of color: billowing scarves in gold, violet, vibrant pink; green and red Gungan hides; ornate robes whose price tag could probably feed a slum somewhere in Wild Space. </p>
<p>The music vibrates in Hux’s teeth. “We should have asked for more,” he says, barely above a valachord flourish.</p>
<p>Ren catches it, though. “Yeah.” He tilts his head. “I could get them to change it at the signing in the morning.”</p>
<p>“They’ll have already drawn up the terms.” Hux raises his eyebrows. “I’d rather not wait on the revisions.”</p>
<p>“Me neither,” Ren seems to concede, but his eyes glitter. The music picks up, and a drum joins the strings. He raises his voice. “Unless you wanted to go talk to them about it now…”</p>
<p>“I’m certain reopening negotiations in the middle of a party will go brilliantly.”</p>
<p>Ren shifts his weight, gaze wandering toward a group of dancers coalescing out of the mass. “We could go lay the groundwork to raise it next time.”</p>
<p>“We could,” Hux agrees.</p>
<p>Neither of them makes a move to leave the shadow of the columns.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>At any other diplomatic engagement, Hux would expect more attention, more ingratiation, more smug millionaires trying to rub elbows with the galaxy’s most powerful buyer of… well, damn near everything, at this point.</p>
<p>But Ren’s presence seems to repel hangers-on like a magnetic field, some centrifugal force inherent to the rumor of him. The mystic. (The monster.)</p>
<p>According to the Order’s media analysis team, there are two stories circulating the galaxy right now, radiating out from Crait: In one, Luke Skywalker single-handedly defies every gun in the First Order, saving the noble Resistance. In the other, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren runs a lightsaber through him.</p>
<p>And it doesn’t hurt that the First Order possesses the designs for a weapon that could reduce any system to mineral particulate.</p>
<p>The two of them would be nothing at a glance, of course: Ren with his wet eyes and his naked, boyish expressions, Hux with his pomade and his toothpick limbs. At worst, the couple who got the wrong invitation and came dressed for a funeral.</p>
<p>But knowing what they do, everyone keeps a safe distance.</p>
<p>It’s all the more reason, of course, to correct the impression, make the rounds, do the handshaking. Be <em> accessible </em>, in a way Palpatine and his Empire never were, not even on his homeworld.</p>
<p>Hux knows this.</p>
<p>Yellow light glares in the marble overhead, on all sides, underfoot. It glitters off the Queen’s headdress, from her spot in the opposite corner of the pavilion.</p>
<p>(Hux knows.)</p>
<p>“Shit,” he says, cutting his eyes at Ren. “We really ought to.”</p>
<p>“Yeah.”</p>
<p>“If we just stand here talking to each other,” Hux observes, “they’ll think we’re conspiring against them.”</p>
<p>Ren glances at Hux. “Or realize we’d rather be getting shot at.”</p>
<p>Hux suppresses a scoff. “That won’t do.”</p>
<p>“It will not,” Ren replies, as deadpan as before.</p>
<p>Still, Hux can’t get himself to move.</p>
<p>He ought to be pissed that Ren apparently can’t either, ought to be recanting everything he said five parsecs out from Vendaxa. The whole thing where he prefers working with Ren to shooting him in the head.</p>
<p>But the trouble is, the past two cycles have been, well. Ideal, frankly.</p>
<p>Ren’s been not only <em>present</em>, but engaged. Excited like he gets--like Hux gets, too--when victories are falling into place. When the resources are pouring in, and change can happen.</p>
<p>He stayed in Hux’s suite past 0100 last night drawing up destinations for the new revenue: nutrition programs in five new Outer Rim territories, a rhydonium refinery on Jafan here in the sector, a hospital on Thyferra. It’s what it’s all <em> for </em>, of course.</p>
<p>And since Vendaxa, at least, Ren has seemed more interested in it--the <em> mission </em> --than not only his paranoia about Hux, but his Force too. It’s <em> worked </em>with him, the past two cycles. </p>
<p>So Hux isn’t going to shatter the peace over diplomatic mingling that isn’t even necessary. Especially when he himself would rather be standing in silence with Kylo Ren than talking to any socialite, profiteer, or small-minded politician in the system. (Ren, at least, is the antithesis of all three.)</p>
<p>But Ren actually steps away from the column on his own after a moment. “I’m going to get a drink,” he announces.</p>
<p>(Lest Hux think he were going to go <em> be sociable </em>.)</p>
<p>Hux purses his lips against a laugh. “That doesn’t count as kissing babies.”</p>
<p>“Damn,” Ren replies, drily, “I didn’t realize that.”</p>
<p>A few steps, and he’s disappeared into the crowd like a shadow.</p>
<p>“Trying to blend in,” he says, when he returns to the periphery, holding two glass tumblers of a transparent liquid. “As much as possible.” He proffers Hux one of the drinks.</p>
<p>Hux takes it. Around the stripes shaped like Ren’s fingers, it’s cool with condensation. “You would know about that,” he says.</p>
<p>Ren scoffs, falling back into place beside him. “I can’t tell if that was sarcasm, or a reference to--”</p>
<p>Hux tries a sip while Ren’s talking. Carbonation scours the back of his throat, stings his eyes. “This is soda water,” he observes, interrupting.</p>
<p>“We’re on duty.” Ren looks straight through the vibrant crowd and sips his own water. But the corner of his mouth twitches faintly.</p>
<p>“So we simply have to suffer.” </p>
<p>“Life is suffering.”</p>
<p>Hux snorts. “Your public messaging would beg to differ.”</p>
<p>“Thank you for that.”</p>
<p>“You’re welcome.”</p>
<p>Ren sips his soda water, and the conversation dies into the hubbub of the portico. On the far side, the drums and lyres of a ballad fade, and a valachord strikes a softer note. The dancers in the middle slow their pace.</p>
<p>Hux forces down another swallow of soda water. This shit is awful.</p>
<p>With the quieter song, the quiet between them grows more conspicuous, if little less comfortable</p>
<p>Hux glances at Ren, who’s made no further move to go socialize. He apparently considers the glass in his hand some kind of camouflage.</p>
<p>“So,” Hux says, tracing a spiral in the sweat on the side of the glass, “did you catch who’s supposed to ‘arrive gladly’?”</p>
<p>“No one’s arriving tonight,” Ren replies. His glass hovers ephemerally over his palm, then he snags it again. “I think it’s commemorating the first human colonists, ten thousand years ago. Which I’m sure the Gungans love.”</p>
<p>Hux huffs a laugh. “So we don’t have to stand here until someone shows up in costume?” he asks. “Or a spring deity symbolically awakens?”</p>
<p>Ren shakes his head. “I don’t remember any deities from last time.”</p>
<p>“Last time?”</p>
<p>Hux regrets the question almost as soon as it’s left his lips. Ren’s made no mention of his genetic link to Naboo since the world’s surrender last month, and Hux has known better than to bring it up.</p>
<p>Of course, he still took precautions: declined a tour of Theed’s memorials, checked the attendee lists for any Naberries. (There were none, of course; the surrender probably wouldn’t have come so easily, otherwise.) </p>
<p>However, he may have just waked a fresher ghost.</p>
<p>Hux rolls his glass between his hands, formulating a diversionary tactic.</p>
<p>But Ren wants to talk.</p>
<p>“I didn’t even know<em>,</em> at that point, about the...connection,” he says, with the stoniness he reserves for memories that technically belong to Ben, the dead boy. “I could feel something. I just…” His grip tightens on his glass, and he takes another swallow instead of finishing the thought.</p>
<p>Hux wipes away some more condensation. “It was a long time ago,” he says, before Ren can get rattled. Can <em> leave </em> on him.</p>
<p>“Yeah.” </p>
<p>Ren’s gaze drifts momentarily upward, to the vines and leaves carved up the sides of the white columns, to the vaulted ceiling. He returns to Hux after a second, though, intently focused. He tilts his head minutely: <em> let’s move, </em>more clearly than if he’d said it aloud.</p>
<p>He steps away from the columns again, and Hux follows him. He walks between Ren and the braziers, Ren between himself and the crowd, nursing the soda water in manageable sips.</p>
<p>Five Gungans clustered near a column move out of their way. A breeze from outside angles the fire vaguely toward them. The smoke reeks until it relents, and the flames straighten, sparks falling.</p>
<p>Hux has followed him halfway across this side of the portico before Ren speaks.</p>
<p>“You didn’t see many worlds like this one,” he seems to observe, apropos of nothing. </p>
<p>Hux looks at him. “What do you...”</p>
<p>“Growing up where you did,” he elaborates.</p>
<p>As opposed to Ren, in the nadir of the Core, miserable. Taking trips to affluent Mid-Rim sectors, miserable.</p>
<p>Hux would have been, too, of course. Visiting them any other way than this: to reconstruct them, shrink them to size beneath a government that’s <em> just </em>. (Finally.)</p>
<p>“The closest we got before your day was Kesh,” he replies.</p>
<p>“I didn’t realize you’d been to Kesh.” Ren’s hand freezes, glass halfway to his mouth, interest sparking in his gaze. “I guess you didn’t see the temple there?”</p>
<p>In the gap between braziers, the temperature seems to drop. Hux’s own drink is like holding a block of ice.</p>
<p>“I saw <em> a </em>temple,” he admits, stiff in his own ears. “Snoke had specifically scheduled the meeting with the locals there. One of.... Two or three times I saw him go planetside?”</p>
<p>“I don’t think I saw any,” Ren replies, that same keenness in his voice. “Officially, anyway. That must have been…” He trails off, eyes darting to the ceiling as he seems to calculate. “How old were you?”</p>
<p>“Fifteen.” Hux sidesteps a puddle of spilled cocktail. A cleaning droid hovers next to it. “He wanted an escort for this meeting, so they sent a detail of cadets. It was...some sort of festival.”</p>
<p>“The Night of the Dispossessed?”</p>
<p>“Could have been.” Hux sips the soda water. The carbonation is wearing off, so it stings rather than scours, the back of his throat. “I suppose Snoke had arranged the meeting to fall that night.”</p>
<p>Neither Ren’s look nor his stride falters. His profile is dark against the dance floor behind it. “What was it like?”</p>
<p>Hux blinks. “What?”</p>
<p>“What was the festival like?” Ren repeats, as if the music had simply drowned him out.</p>
<p>Hux shakes his head. “You’ve heard of...a thousand Force rituals, I’m certain.”</p>
<p>“Not this one,” Ren says, simply. “Not from you.”</p>
<p>“I’m certain I’ll tell it so grippingly,” Hux returns. </p>
<p>“I like your stories.” Ren drags his free hand through his hair, gaze wandering back to the crowd, to the swirl of vivid fabrics, the world he once knew from inside. He looks back at Hux. “They’re always more interesting than what I was doing at that age.”</p>
<p>Hux takes a sip. “Meditating?”</p>
<p>And it’s an opening, of course. For whatever childhood darkness or adolescent loneliness or legitimate trauma that’s lodged under his sternum tonight.</p>
<p>But he doesn’t take it.</p>
<p>Doesn’t exactly answer.</p>
<p>“You know,” he says, quietly, a curve to his mouth that’s somewhere between sheepish and self-amused, “when I first joined the Order, I would <em> plan </em>my questions for our meetings in terms of what I thought might get some personal detail, some story, out of you.”</p>
<p>“Planning was a big step for you.”</p>
<p>Ren actually laughs. “I guess I found you that fascinating.”</p>
<p>Hux scoffs below the music. “Well, you learned otherwise.”</p>
<p>“Not really,” Ren says, and doesn’t pause for Hux to question it. “What was it like?” he repeats.</p>
<p>Hux pops his lips. There’s no digging back in his memory, nothing fogged over by time or relevance or even the haze of hunger he’d put himself in at fifteen. Something like this refused to be buried, compartmentalized with so much of the rest of his tenure as a cadet. He inhales.</p>
<p>“It was night,” he says, “when we got there. It was an oxygen atmosphere, but this whole stone complex was lit with <em> green </em>fires. Sconces, braziers. It smelled like an engine room.”</p>
<p>Ren nods. A few meters away, a trio of Gungans pluck at ten-string zithers.</p>
<p>“The Commandant orders us into formation behind Snoke, two squads of cadets, and the fires dim for a moment. The lead xeno--the priest, the shaman, whatever they were--starts chanting--you would have understood the language, I didn’t. Their whole contingent echoes it.”</p>
<p>The chamber had shaken with it, the reverbing noise; Hux had felt it in his boots, in his marrow. That isn’t worth recounting.</p>
<p>“And as they’re chanting,” he continues, methodically, “Snoke starts lifting his hand.” His mouth twists almost of its own accord. What came next seems so <em> small </em>, looking back. </p>
<p>“Yeah?” Ren prompts.</p>
<p>“Snoke lifts his hand,” Hux repeats, “and every object on the ground starts to rise off of it--stones, blasters, the xenos’ little drink offerings to their sky-gods, like in a zero-g sim. And the chanting stops. Then they’re calling Snoke ‘Great Protector,’ and the laws of gravity aren’t working, and I’m--” <em> Wondering if-- </em></p>
<p>“And you’re thinking, ‘bullshit,’” Ren supplies.</p>
<p>Hux smiles. “I’m thinking I’m probably going to pass out because I only ate a jogun at mess.” Across the room, the zithers decrescendo with a flourish. “But also ‘bullshit.’”</p>
<p>Ren looks at him over the lip of his glass. “And then…?”</p>
<p>“And then I decided it was some sort of magnet tech,” Hux finishes.</p>
<p>“That’s it?”</p>
<p>It is. The next time Hux saw anything like it, anything he couldn’t explain with a formula or a postulate, was thirteen years later, in an interrogation chamber. Cyan blood was running down a prisoner’s gills, while they gasped out coordinates Hux’s Security Bureau questioners wouldn’t have thought to ask for. </p>
<p>But that part of the story, Ren already knows. </p>
<p>Hux turns his glass. “That’s it.”</p>
<p>Ren scoffs, but the sound is gentle, something bruised in it. “Of course it is.”</p>
<p>A service droid hovers up before Hux can generate a response, proffering an empty tray, apparently for their glasses. Ren thanks it as he sets down his own; Hux echoes him. Liquid glitters in both still, around a third of the way to the bottom.</p>
<p>The brazier to Hux’s right spits sparks into the darkness beyond the columns. Outside the pavilion’s island of light, the night is a void.</p>
<p>“Kesh,” Ren says after a moment, standing still. “It’s… one of the most important holy sites to study.”</p>
<p>“Is it?” Hux asks, politely.</p>
<p>“It didn’t have any natural imbuement with Darkness. It was just… <em> land </em> .” Ren pauses, glances over Hux’s shoulder out into the night. “But this tribe of Sith came to the planet, and picked this one spot, and <em> made </em> it holy.”</p>
<p>Hux raises his eyebrows. “That sounds like a feat of public messaging.”</p>
<p>“No,” Ren replies, with less than his typical sharpness. “It’s—the nature of the Dark. To transform.”</p>
<p>Hux considers this. Pops his lips. It sounds familiar.</p>
<p>“Is that all we’re doing now, then?” he asks, and manages a skeptic’s levity. “Fulfilling your religious tenets?”</p>
<p>“In reverse,” Ren replies, so quickly it’s confidence, not defensiveness. “We need to transform the galaxy, so I use the Darkness. Whatever it offers.”</p>
<p>That much, Hux can tolerate. Always has. Ren’s abilities as a tool, a weapon. Means, not end. In the months since Snoke’s demise, it’s become gradually clearer that Ren--on his good days--might be able to agree.</p>
<p>Become clearer, with each world that falls, now that he’s out of Snoke’s grasp, now that he has a <em> choice </em>, that he wants what Hux does.</p>
<p>That he has the same thing burning inside him. The thing that will raze a thousand systems, stand knee-deep in the ashes, and build it all back safer, stronger, <em> better </em>. </p>
<p>(It would seem so.)</p>
<p>“But you’d need to transform the galaxy regardless?” Hux asks. It’s the only way to word it.</p>
<p>Ren’s quiet for several counts of the ballad that’s playing. Heels clatter against the marble floor in some kind of tap dance. In profile, not the reflections, but the motion flickers in his eye. </p>
<p>“I don’t know,” he says, finally. “When you’re born with--<em> like </em> this, I--” He swallows. “I can’t imagine wanting to use it for anything less.”</p>
<p>Relief loosens a snarl in Hux’s mind, the glitch he’s been looping back to for months now: Ren wants this, too.</p>
<p>It’s an answer so good Hux couldn’t have programmed it, the kind of <em> need </em> you can’t condition into anyone. (And he’s tried.)</p>
<p>Ren <em> wants </em> this. What he’s taken. Not just for the Force, not just for revenge. For the Order, the galaxy. Hux can comprehend that. Can work with it.</p>
<p>“Good,” he says.</p>
<p>Ren looks at him for a moment, studies him. There’s a gentleness to his gaze, though: like he’s looking at a painting, rather than parsing a data sample. “You too, right?” he says, softly.</p>
<p><em> I wasn’t born like-- </em>starts an instinctive retort, but Ren’s expression douses it just as quickly. Hux knows a compliment when he hears it. Of his skills, perhaps, or his ambition.</p>
<p>“I suppose so.” He allows himself a smile. “Thank you.”</p>
<p>Ren returns it, but it’s brittle. The kind of smile that would shatter if you tapped it.</p>
<p>“I wish I’d been there,” he says, after a moment. </p>
<p>Hux follows the thread back to the beginning. Ren’s like this sometimes. Talking in figure-eights. “On Kesh?” he confirms.</p>
<p>The smile dissolves entirely. “On all of them,” Ren says, fingers working at his side. “I came so late, compared to you. I…wasted so much time.”</p>
<p>What the hell is Hux supposed to say to that? <em> Yes, we could have used you sooner? No, I’m sure your Jedi training was terribly important? </em></p>
<p>Hux inhales. “You came as soon as you could,” he offers.</p>
<p>Something loosens in Ren’s posture, some tension unspooled or question answered. </p>
<p>Two columns pass on Hux’s right. A third, a brazier. From this side of the pavilion, the moons are visible, casting the courtyard outside in grayscale, glinting in the marble. The fires look weaker.</p>
<p>“If I had been there,” Ren says, quietly,  “on Kesh. Would you have thought any differently about it?”</p>
<p>Hux thins his lips. There can’t possibly be a <em> right </em>answer to this question. Moreover, it’s irrelevant. </p>
<p>“I doubt it,” he says.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s nearly zero hundred hours when the tip comes in.</p>
<p>Hux retreated with Ren from the festivities half an hour ago--as soon as was remotely politically acceptable. The only dignitary they managed to schmooze was the Queen herself, who made her way to the edge of the room, and offered wine. They quasi-graciously refused, and confirmed the logistics for tomorrow’s early morning signing.</p>
<p>Ren said <em> “good,” </em> and Hux said <em> “good evening </em>,” and then they made a tactical withdrawal.</p>
<p>Now, safely back in his guest suite in the Order-occupied section of the palace, Hux has cracked the window. A spring breeze and the chatter of the Solleu, the river of Theed, waft inside. He’s at the wooden desk beneath it, reviewing sitreps from the Inner Rim and contemplating a shower, when his datapad chimes a high-pri sequence.</p>
<p>A notification window descends across the top of the screen: <em> FW: Report Issued / Terrorism: Core Worlds/Plot Against Base #20771 </em></p>
<p>Of course, Hux taps immediately.</p>
<p>Under a short message from Opan stating that he’s flagging the below report for possible action, is a two-paragraph report on a credible threat against the newly-established Order base on the Core world Rydonni Prime. </p>
<p>The planet was deemed under control as of three weeks ago--no longer a combat zone--but Resistance sentiments always die slow.</p>
<p>Not only does the plot need to be stopped, but the apparent sleeper cell where it originated needs to be rooted out. Made an example of. The Order’s hold on the Core grows tighter every cycle, but an attack like this one could shatter their projected control.</p>
<p>Ren, therefore,  will want to know. And all but certainly will plan a detour.</p>
<p>Hux forwards him the message, copying Opan by way of thanks, but sends a follow-up chat message--<em> check your inbox-- </em>since Ren’s never once turned on his holomail notifs in six years of service.</p>
<p>When Ren hasn’t responded to the chat within two minutes, it’s more than likely he’s away from his datapad, or worse, has it silenced.</p>
<p>Might as well shower in the meantime.</p>
<p>When Hux gets out, Ren hasn’t so much as <em> read </em> the message, much less responded. Which is absurdly unhelpful, since any operational detour should be planned <em> tonight </em>, not halfway across the Inner Rim next cycle.</p>
<p>Hux shuts off his datapad. “Damnit.”</p>
<p>Ren’s staying in the executive suite at the end of the corridor. It will be faster.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Ren is apparently just in a non-answering sort of mood, because he doesn’t come to his door, either.</p>
<p>Not after a quiet knock, not after a forbearing request on the suite’s intercom.</p>
<p>Hux thins his lips, shifts his weight. Waiting, in the corridor’s silverish natural light. He’ll have to resort to the barrage of messages and comms--unless...</p>
<p>His gaze falls on the entry panel, a model that doesn’t display whether it’s locked. </p>
<p>“Why not,” he mutters, and presses it.</p>
<p>Shockingly, the doors part without so much as requesting an access cylinder. The fact that Ren hasn’t bothered with basic physical security measures--even here, even given what he is--sits uncomfortably.</p>
<p>But the thought evaporates as soon as Hux crosses threshold, replaced by three more pressing concerns: the darkness of the room, the disheveled bed, and the sound of Ren’s voice, as if he’s engaged in conversation.</p>
<p>“I <em> have </em>been meditating. You must sense that.”</p>
<p>Ren’s pacing the transparent paneling that leads onto a balcony overlooking the Solleu. Moonlight streams through the glass into the chamber, dappled by his shadow as he moves.</p>
<p>There’s no one else in the room, of course, and Ren doesn’t so much as look in Hux’s direction. Against reason, Hux’s pulse ticks up, fight or flight.</p>
<p>But there’s nothing to be afraid of.</p>
<p>Ren must be on some kind of holocall, with some world on an entirely opposite time zone, he must--</p>
<p>“You know I’m deeper in the Darkness than I’ve ever been,” Ren continues. His voice sounds close to breaking. “I can feel the pulse of every being in this palace. Every eddy of that river. How long till this whole garden withers. I could stop all of it with a thought. Now.”</p>
<p>Hux attempts to interrupt: “Supreme Leader.”</p>
<p>Ren doesn’t acknowledge him.</p>
<p>Whatever.</p>
<p>He scans Ren’s hands, his wrist, each ear as he pivots, for signs of a comlink turned up too loud. Someone he’s blustering at.</p>
<p>There’s no trace. </p>
<p>The room is far cooler than Hux’s was, even with a window open. That’s why gooseflesh stands up on his arms. He chafes at them.</p>
<p>“Who are you talking to?” he asks slowly, across the room.</p>
<p>Ren doesn’t even turn his head.</p>
<p>“Show me what I need,” he says, with a low pulse of energy, tight and controlled and persistent, like he’s conducting an interrogation. “You will <em> show me </em> what I <em> need </em>.”</p>
<p>There’s no one else in the room. He isn’t even <em> touching </em>tech of any kind, much less using it. </p>
<p>There have always been the nightmares and the <em> feelings </em> . Then there were the brief talks with the Jedi, and there are now the visions, like before Coruscant which Ren somehow considers distinct. Which drive him to <em> act </em>ion, rather than tears and shame. (But which seem to frighten him nonetheless.)</p>
<p>But this.</p>
<p>This is unique.</p>
<p>Hux’s heartbeat echoes in his ears. The rush of the lead evaporates, replaced by a cold uncertainty he hasn’t felt since Ren would come back battered and hollow from training sessions with Snoke.</p>
<p>When he’d insist he just had to be stronger, and when Hux hadn’t known how to tell him he used to think the same. </p>
<p>(That the Commandant told him the same lie, until Hux silenced him, permanently.)</p>
<p>But where Ren had been drained then--all jutting bones and blotchy bruises and monosyllables--he’s <em> on </em>now.</p>
<p>Angry. Defiant.</p>
<p>If his ascent to Snoke’s throne has done one thing for him, it’s--for better or worse--proven he doesn’t have to take anyone’s shit.</p>
<p>But without Snoke, with Hux taking a softer approach, who or what would dare--</p>
<p>“I <em> am </em>ready. Just tell me--”</p>
<p>He stops dead, in the center of the glass. His shadow stretches across the white knolls and gullies of mussed bedding; he clearly at least tried to sleep before--</p>
<p>This.</p>
<p>“You always say that.” Ren’s voice pitches upward, splintering audibly. His gaze stays straight ahead, and he drags a distressed hand through still sleep-mussed hair. “My whole life has been trials. Now I need--”</p>
<p>He must be dreaming.</p>
<p>Sleepwalking.</p>
<p>“Supreme Leader.” Hux measures his voice into the neutral, diplomatic tone he’s used for the past two days of negotiations. “Wake up.”</p>
<p>Of course, it does nothing.</p>
<p>Ren starts pacing again, though, his bare feet soundless on the marble floor.</p>
<p>“Wake up,” Hux repeats louder, in vain.</p>
<p>“You don’t understand,” Ren all but spits. “You should. I defeated Snoke. You’re nothing.”</p>
<p>He’s silent for a few steps, but moves faster, bouncing back and forth between the walls like some caged animal, futilely smelling prey outside the bars of its enclosure.</p>
<p>“I will!” His volume spikes. “I am!” He pauses again, and both hands go to his hair. “What else do you want from me?”</p>
<p>“Supreme--”</p>
<p>“I’ll find your power. I’ll take it. Just give me-- <em> Fuck!”  </em></p>
<p>He isn’t particularly loud, but some intangible sensation like a sonic boom ripples through the air from his direction. </p>
<p>A hairline fracture appears at the top corner of the glass paneling. It spiders out from beneath the drawn curtain for several centimeters before stopping; it refracts the moonlight a prismatic silver across Ren’s feet.</p>
<p>A warning sign.</p>
<p>Hux’s heartbeat drops to his diaphragm. His flight instinct demands a 180.</p>
<p>
  <em> Get out go let this be runhe’sdangerousyou’reindanger-- </em>
</p>
<p>But if Ren’s already splintered glass, he’ll have torn the palace down stone by stone before morning. (Moreover, it’s better to know the worst.)</p>
<p>Hux has only ever seen the aftermath of whatever dreams have lodged inside Ren’s skull since Snoke’s fall. </p>
<p>
  <em> But it’s been better.  </em>
</p>
<p>He’s been.</p>
<p>
  <em> (So fix him again.) </em>
</p>
<p>Hux rounds the foot of the bed, into ground zero.</p>
<p>He takes the few short steps across the rug, then the stone flooring, to block Ren’s path. He’s perhaps a half-meter from him--keeping a smart distance--but Ren looks past him, hands drop to his sides again.</p>
<p>He swallows hard; it’s only at this proximity that Hux notices the quiver of his chin. Ren sets his jaw against it.</p>
<p>“I’m trying,” he says, fierce, coldly irate. “I’ve been trying my whole fucking life.”</p>
<p>Hux fights back the overwhelming urge to touch him-grab him by both shoulders and shake him out of whatever this is--but he’s dangerous when he’s this deep in his head. More volatile than usual, easily startled.</p>
<p>Hux takes another step forward instead. “Supreme Leader,” he says, like a command. “It isn’t real. You have to wake up.”</p>
<p>“You say you want my anger. My passion. Then the moment I show--” He makes to walk forward again, but Hux blocks him, closing all but a few centimeters of distance between them.</p>
<p>He still doesn’t acknowledge Hux, but he seems to at least sense his presence.</p>
<p>Ren’s fingers curl and uncurl at his sides. His expression threatens to crumple, but he steels it, squeezing his eyes shut. “I’m learning. I’m trying,” he repeats. “If this isn’t enough, then <em> what--” </em></p>
<p>“Wake the hell up!” Hux hisses. </p>
<p>Ren’s lips part, trembling, but there’s only fury in his voice. “Answer me. Fucking <em> answer me. Shit-- </em>You can’t just stop. You have to show me--”</p>
<p>“<em> Supreme </em> . <em> Leader </em>.”</p>
<p>Ren’s eyes open, but he only looks at his feet. Runs a hand through his hair again. “Damn it,” he breathes. “<em> Damnit!” </em></p>
<p>Adrenaline races through Hux’s body, sets his every nerve on edge. He wants to grab Ren by both arms. Pin him to the floor, the bed, the splintered glass. Stab or slap or choke awareness back into him.</p>
<p>But at the same time, he couldn’t move if he tried. He’s paralyzed, rooted to the spot, watching this like he’s cased in carbonite from the neck down. Entirely powerless.</p>
<p>“Supreme--” he starts again, low, as firmly as he can.</p>
<p>And Ren looks up.</p>
<p>His eyes dart across Hux’s face, hollow, terrified, like he doesn’t recognize him. It sends a drop of ice water down Hux’s spine.</p>
<p>After a moment, though, his typical intense, almost confrontational focus returns, holding Hux’s gaze for a silent moment.</p>
<p>Hux can’t stand it. Has to <em> know. </em>“I haven’t seen you sleepwalk before,” he says, clipped and professional. As docile as he can make it.</p>
<p>“I wasn’t asleep,” Ren retorts.</p>
<p>Hux thins his lips. “Then what was that?”</p>
<p>“You wouldn’t understand.”</p>
<p>Three hours ago, Hux’s skepticism seemed to disappoint, even wound him. Now he’s smug about it. Dismissive. The jackass.</p>
<p>Just because Hux doesn’t <em> believe </em> in his bullshit doesn’t mean he’s incapable of a cognitive understanding of what Ren thinks he’s experiencing. Ren should know this by now.</p>
<p>Ren <em> does </em>know this. He’s just being petulant.</p>
<p>“Then humor my ignorance,” Hux returns, icily. “Who were you talking to? I don’t--” He breaks off, letting the facts sink in again. “I don’t see a comm.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know.”</p>
<p>It sounds exactly like a fucking lie. “That was quite the conversation to be having with a total stranger.”</p>
<p>Ren’s eyes flash. “How much did you hear?”</p>
<p>“Some gibberish about a power you want to be shown,” Hux says, as flatly as he can. He glances briefly down: Ren’s hands are shaking.</p>
<p>“What are you doing here?” Ren demands.</p>
<p>“Trying to brief you on a lead,” Hux replies, asks in turn before Ren can stop him: “What was that?”</p>
<p>“You aren’t supposed to be in here. You weren’t supposed to hear--”</p>
<p>Hux raises his eyebrows. “Then you should have locked me out before deciding to have your private conversation.”</p>
<p>“I don’t decide it!” Ren snaps back. “It just happens, I can’t--”</p>
<p>Hux takes the opening. “What is it, some kind of vision?”</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>“What’s the power?”</p>
<p>“I don’t <em> know </em>!” Ren’s fist smacks the glass, and the panel shudders precariously.</p>
<p>“<em> Don’t </em>,” Hux hisses. He gestures vaguely to the crack in the corner behind him. “You’ll break the whole thing at this rate. How will you explain--”</p>
<p>“I don’t care,” Ren mutters, but does drop his hand. “It doesn’t matter.”</p>
<p>Hux scoffs. “Of course. Material objects and concrete resources are irrelevant next to whatever hallucination--”</p>
<p>“It<em> is </em> about resources,” Ren says. Now that his fingers have uncurled, they’re trembling again. “I told you that earlier tonight. Whatever the Force has for me--”</p>
<p>“What kind of resources?” Hux demands, cutting him off. That was different, that was interrogations and psychological clout, not--</p>
<p>“I told you I don’t <em> know </em>.” Ren’s tone pitches up, cracks dangerously. “He always tells me--”</p>
<p>“Who’s ‘he?’”</p>
<p>Ren grinds his teeth. “I don’t--”</p>
<p>“<em> Who. </em>”</p>
<p>“A voice, okay!” Ren all but shouts. </p>
<p>All the blood drains from Hux’s head. “What?”</p>
<p>He doesn’t want to guess.</p>
<p>“A voice,” Ren repeats, softer now but more perilous. “From the Dark. It…” He trails off into a huffed exhale. “It guides me. Sometimes. Sort of.”</p>
<p>Hux’s hand goes to his mouth. Drops again to his side.</p>
<p>“What the fuck?”</p>
<p>Ren’s nightmares are at least comprehensible. Relatable.</p>
<p>But. </p>
<p>But <em> voices in his head. </em></p>
<p>That’s-- Hux doesn’t know where to begin.</p>
<p>“What do you mean, <em> what the fuck </em>?” Ren retorts, clearly wanting to sound angrier than his splintered voice allows. “They’re-- It’s. Part of my connection to the Force.”</p>
<p>It’s fucking delusional, is what it is. Hux doesn’t know where to begin.</p>
<p>“How--” Hux stammers, popping his lips. His thoughts feel disjointed, a pile of shards he’s trying futilely to piece back together. “How long has this been happening?”</p>
<p><em> (My whole fucking life-- </em>)</p>
<p>No. He can’t have meant.</p>
<p>“As long as I can remember,” Ren replies, harsh and exasperated. A dam seems to burst; he runs a hand through his hair. Talks to the floor, as if he’s forgotten Hux is here at all. “I thought it was Snoke. All this time. Even when I was Ben. I thought it was Snoke, but now. Snoke’s gone, but I still--” He sucks in a breath. “It’s still <em> there.” </em>He smacks the glass again.</p>
<p>“<em> Stop that. </em>” Hux hardly hears himself over the pounding in his ears. Every hair on his arms is on end. It’s freezing in here. “What do you mean, it’s still there?”</p>
<p>“I mean I fucking still hear it!” Ren’s hand stays still, but across the room, the bedside chrono falls on its face. “Obviously.”</p>
<p>Hux steels his own jaw. Balls his hands at his sides to keep from gesticulating wildly. From slapping Ren across the face in a futile attempt to snap him out of his own head.</p>
<p>This is.</p>
<p>Worse than anything he could have imagined.</p>
<p>“So this is what has been determining our organizational direction for the past three months?” Hux’s blood roars in his ears. “The voices in your head?”</p>
<p>“No,” Ren returns, sounding petulant where perhaps he intends <em> authority. </em>“Only guiding me in the Force.”</p>
<p>Hux scoffs. “Which absolutely <em> never </em>influences your political decisions.”</p>
<p>“I mean, it’s all one war, but I’m not invading worlds because…” Ren trails off, huffs a frustrated exhale. “...<em> he </em> told me to <em> .” </em></p>
<p>“What about Coruscant?” Hux retorts, grasping for facts when all this is beyond processing, beyond comprehension.</p>
<p>Ren’s lip curls. “That was different. That was a vision.”</p>
<p>“Oh, a vision, of course. Even better.”</p>
<p>“You’ve always known I have visions.”</p>
<p>Hux flings his hands to his sides. “And now I’m starting to wonder about those, too!” </p>
<p>“You’ve also always doubted me,” Ren says, like it’s some sort of winning point.</p>
<p>Bu that isn’t what’s happening here. </p>
<p>This isn’t Hux’s typical skepticism.</p>
<p>This is the future of the Order hanging in the balance, perched on the narrow precipice between reality and what Ren thinks his Force is telling him.</p>
<p>If this-<em> -this </em>--is the ‘movement of the Force’ upon which he keeps basing policy--</p>
<p>If he’s trying to please it--</p>
<p>If he has been for years--</p>
<p>“You sound insane,” Hux says.</p>
<p>“I’m not,” Ren replies. Glances out the window, then back to Hux, with the lofty gleam in his eyes that he <em> knows </em>drives Hux beyond rage. “I told you you wouldn’t understand.”</p>
<p>“There’s nothing <em> to </em>understand. This is nonsense.” Hux clears his throat, straightens his spine. “If you were anyone else, I’d have to report this. Your clearances would be stripped in an instant.”</p>
<p>“I’d like to see them try.”</p>
<p>“You’re--” Hux swallows. Reassembles the pieces of his professional mask. “You’re clearly unwell. Sir.”</p>
<p>“I’m not,” Ren says, for the second time. His voice splinters further, and the anger dissolves. “I’m just--” He tips his head back, blinking rapidly against what must be tears. “Just fucking tired.”</p>
<p>Something hot clenches in Hux’s chest, like a cough he can’t choke out. “Supreme Leader--” he starts, unsure what he means to argue.</p>
<p>Ren closes his eyes, shakes his head. “Why am I telling you this. You already want me dead or removed. Fuck.” He buries his nails in his palms; Hux can feel the crescents it will leave like a phantom pain. “<em> Fuck </em>,” Ren repeats.</p>
<p>Hux ignores the observation. Never mind what they agreed after Vendaxa, any defense would sound forced. And would moreover fall on deaf ears right now. </p>
<p>“If you’re tired,” he says instead, slowly, “why don’t you try to sleep?”</p>
<p>Ren shakes his head. Stares out at the balcony for far too long, with his hands shaking at his sides. </p>
<p>“It’s fucking freezing in here,” he finally says, less to Hux than to the moonlight and the glass and the river far below.</p>
<p>He reaches for the manual lock on the sliding door, scrabbles at it for several seconds, but his fingers are too unsteady to get hold of the small knob. He curses under his breath, as if at himself.</p>
<p>It’s pitiful to watch.</p>
<p>(Fuck it.)</p>
<p>Hux turns and bats his hand aside, twisting the knob and sliding the light door open in a single fluid motion. Night air rushes into the room with the babble of the river.</p>
<p>Hux steps aside to clear the way for him, and Ren crosses out onto the balcony without a word. A step out, though, and he stops. Doesn’t turn around, but says, “Hux.”</p>
<p>The request in it is clear, even as he keeps moving.</p>
<p>Hux follows him out, joining him at a high balustrade, of the same silver-veined marble as the rest of the palace. Ren’s forearms rest on the stone, fingers laced tightly together, clearly to still them.</p>
<p>Hux mirrors his position. He has no idea what to say.</p>
<p>Three hours ago Ren was bringing him soda water, cracking political jokes. Making the Force sound like little more than a special interest, a useful tactical weapon. Now he’s shaking, haunted, consumed with it.</p>
<p>In Hux’s periphery, Ren closes his eyes. Breathes in so deeply his shoulders move up, then exhales gradually.</p>
<p>Lanterns in the neighborhoods on the other side of the river glimmer in the night. The moonlight is even brighter out here, frosting the river’s currents. Above the rush of the water, lively music floats on the air, zithers and drums and a valachord.</p>
<p>Hux’s gooseflesh settles over the next few minutes. He breathes steadily, too, taking in the aroma of the wildflowers in the courtyard below, the fresh note of mountain runoff in the water.</p>
<p>“There’s nothing you can do,” Ren says, into the silence of a lull in the music. He looks like a statue, all granite-pale skin and dramatic, classical lines--the kind that would fit right in here. His voice sounds just as emotionless. As dead. “About this. I hope you know that.”</p>
<p>Hux does, for all it feels like a cavity’s opened up in his stomach, yawning cold and wide. “Yes, sir,” he says, tersely.</p>
<p>Inexplicably, Ren sighs. “I can’t make you believe me. That doesn’t change my orders.”</p>
<p>“I’m well aware.”</p>
<p>“Good.”</p>
<p>Hux thins his lips, bows his head, and in the quiet the reason he’s here comes back to him. The reason he saw any of this and now<em> knows it </em>.</p>
<p>What’s he supposed to do, ask Ren for his stance on a counterterrorism mission <em> now </em>? He’s in no suitable frame of mind to be making operational decisions.</p>
<p>(But given what’s going on inside his skull, is he ever?)</p>
<p>It matters, of course, but it doesn’t change the fact that Hux still needs his permission to order an investigatory stopover on Rydonni Prime next cycle. It doesn’t change the fact that they still both need the Resistance out of their way.</p>
<p>Ren needs to remember where the real war is.</p>
<p>“Did your voices tell you we’ve got a Resistance threat in the Core?”</p>
<p>It comes out harsher than intended, and anyone else would flinch under the disgusted look Ren gives him.</p>
<p>All Ren says, though, is, “No.” He turns back to the Solleu and the sky.</p>
<p>“Rydonni Prime,” Hux says. “They’re purportedly planning to bomb the new base.” To Ren’s guarded look, he continues, “We need to get there first.”</p>
<p>“And eradicate the cell,” Ren supplies, but still doesn’t look at him. “Reroute us for tomorrow.”</p>
<p>“Yes, sir.”</p>
<p>Another breeze crosses the courtyard, soft on Hux’s skin, teasing his hair and Ren’s beside him.</p>
<p>“I hope we beat them to it,” Ren offers, almost woodenly. </p>
<p>“As do I.”</p>
<p>Whatever he thinks he heard must have taken something out of him: typically he’d be buzzing, rabid, at the notion of rooting out insurgents, any sort, anywhere.</p>
<p>Silence falls even heavier between them. The music hasn’t started back up.</p>
<p>Suddenly, Hux is so tired he can hardly keep his eyes open. He drums his fingers against the balustrade to busy them, maintain some level of alertness.</p>
<p>After several eternal minutes of this, though, Ren seems to feel it, too.</p>
<p>“I’m going to bed,” he says, abruptly turning from the balustrade to head back inside.</p>
<p>Hux follows him. It’s still far chillier inside the stone walls than out, and Hux chafes at his forearms almost as soon as he’s shut the door behind them.</p>
<p>Ren settles gingerly onto the bed, draws his long legs up into a loose comma, and pulls the covers halfway over his shoulder. Hux loops to the foot of the bed, hovering halfway to the door, when Ren’s voice stops him mid-step.</p>
<p>“Hux?”</p>
<p>Ren’s gaze is heavy on his back, and he shouldn’t turn around.</p>
<p>He shouldn’t.</p>
<p>He should walk out the door and down the hall and manage what rest he can before tomorrow’s early signing. <em> Ren’s </em> sleep is shot for the night, but as long as one of them is functional and capable of diplomatic bullshit, it doesn’t matter which one.</p>
<p>But it’s the rare inflection in Ren’s voice. The uncertainty that he can never fully conceal, not even behind a mask or through a vocoder, but which is still seldom so <em> bare </em>. </p>
<p>Hux half-pivots toward him. “Sir,” he returns, and manages to squelch the question in his own voice. It still comes out softer than he intends.</p>
<p>Ren meets his eyes instantly, magnetically, then drops them to his own arm, bent next to the pillow. “That’s troubling. About the lead. Thank you for coming to tell me.”</p>
<p>He’s looked back up by the time he’s done, but it comes out in a stilted rush, desperate and cautious all at once.</p>
<p>Hux dips his head. “Of course.” He shifts his weight, starts to take another step forward. <em> Goodnight </em> crystallizes on the tip of his tongue.</p>
<p>Ren’s faster. “I wouldn’t have looked at my inbox again tonight.” That much, Hux inferred. “I appreciate it.”</p>
<p>Hux could almost laugh. He could almost fucking crack up because Ren is <em> transparent. </em>Always has been.</p>
<p>The <em> gratitude </em>.</p>
<p>He’s stalling. He’s stalling, because he’s even worse than Hux at being lonely. </p>
<p>Because nonetheless he apparently hasn’t been alone in his own <em> skull </em>in decades, and of everyone he could have told over the past twenty years, it was Hux, now. And Hux is halfway to the door.</p>
<p>He holds Hux’s gaze, and it’s awful. Exhaustion meets the plea in his eyes.</p>
<p>Hux can’t stand it. It’s out of his mouth before he can stop it: “Would you care to hear what the report said?”</p>
<p>It’s a career move<em> , </em>that’s all. The more Ren needs Hux, the more stable Hux’s position. (The more fragile Ren’s.) This is the duller version, perhaps, of the stories he claims to find so fascinating.</p>
<p>“I really…” Ren trails off strained, picks up bone-weary. “I can’t look at it tonight. I will in the morning.”</p>
<p>“No, I mean.” Hux inhales, and he shouldn’t be saying this. “Would you like me to read it to you? Or were you going to go right back to sleep?”</p>
<p>They both know the latter isn’t the case. That Ren will be lying here for hours in the moonlight, with the cracked window pane, and his demons on loop, echoing through every dark grotto of his excellent mind.</p>
<p>Ren blinks, then looks at him for a moment. It’s enough to glue Hux’s boots to the floor: the naked, soft, grateful thing in his face. The look of vulnerable live skin under layers of scaly hide, of the gap in the ion shield. Of the child let in out of the rain.</p>
<p>“No,” he says, “I--wasn’t. Shockingly,” he tacks on, drily, with a pathetic little twitch of his lip.</p>
<p>“Very well, then.”</p>
<p>“My datapad’s here.” Ren props himself up on one elbow and reaches toward the night table beside the bed. He grabs it, rather than levitates it. “Since you don’t have yours on you.”</p>
<p>Whether he’s aware of this simply because Hux didn’t immediately reach for it, or because he has a sixth-or-seventh sense for holo-connected devices, Hux isn’t certain.</p>
<p>“That will work,” he says, regardless, and rounds the bed.</p>
<p>He isn’t certain what he’s <em> doing. </em>His knuckles tighten behind his back, and Ren’s eyes hollow his chest. He stops at the side of the bed and releases his hands to take Ren’s proffered datapad. Moonlight glistens in the dead black screen.</p>
<p>“You can sit down,” Ren says, inching toward the center of the bed to clear space for Hux, apparently on the edge of the mattress.</p>
<p>It wouldn’t be the first time, of course, in six years of this. Hux did as much on Starkiller (on the crumbling face of his life’s work) four months ago, not to mention the countless narrow victories, stray blaster bolts, and violent “training sessions” over the years. It isn’t as if there’s ever been a choice. Not if he wants to maintain any semblance of a working relationship with a man who can’t seem to keep himself in one piece, and has no one.</p>
<p>(Never mind that Hux has never had anyone, either.)</p>
<p>He settles onto the bed, and doesn’t think.</p>
<p>“You’re a model behind,” he points out, pressing his thumb to the two-year-old tablet’s bioreader.</p>
<p>“I know.” </p>
<p>A glance down shows Ren’s eyes half-closed, lashes casting faint shadows on his cheek. The dim light casts his scar white and ancient.</p>
<p>Even on the older operating system, Hux’s inbox and settings load without issue. He pulls up the report.</p>
<p>“It’s just a tipper,” he warns, looking down at the four concise sentences. </p>
<p>“You could read something else when you’re done.”</p>
<p>“If you fancy you’ll be awake.”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Ren says, with the dry lilt he gets when he’s borrowing Hux’s lexicon, “I fancy.”</p>
<p>Unfortunately, it’s a good sign. Hux sighs at the datapad screen, but reads the report aloud, reliability caveats and all. </p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Ren doesn’t react when he’s done, just stares straight ahead, past Hux, past his lightsaber on the night table.</p>
<p>“Something else?” </p>
<p>Ren blinks. “Yes. Please.”</p>
<p>Hux gets through a couple of standard sitreps, trying to filter his selections by priority. If Ren falls asleep during any of these, it won’t damage operations.</p>
<p>But his eyes are still wide, bright, transfixed on Hux’s profile, when Hux looks down at him.</p>
<p>“This doesn’t seem to be helping,” Hux observes. “I can go if I’m keeping you awake.” It’s less an offer than a syllogism. </p>
<p>“Don’t,” Ren returns, too fast. He knows it; his eyes drop to his own fingers, buried loosely in the bedding. “Please.”</p>
<p>“Very well.”</p>
<p>Hux is about to open a draft foodstuffs trade deal with three key Inner Rim sectors. Something even duller than the sitreps. </p>
<p>“‘The Government of the First Order,’" he starts, “‘hereby resolves with the Government of the Hapes Consortium--'”</p>
<p>But Ren interrupts him, soft but clear. “It’s better,” he says, and swallows visibly, <br/>“with you here. It’s. Quieter.”</p>
<p>Quiet. </p>
<p>He needs <em> quiet. </em></p>
<p>Because he hears voices in his head. </p>
<p>(He hears voices in his head.)</p>
<p>Hux manages to pop his lips. “You seem to hear things all the time with me.”</p>
<p>Ren’s silent for so long he should be asleep. Instead he studies the sheets.</p>
<p>“But when I--if I’m able to focus on you instead—“ Ren’s hand moves as if to touch Hux, but he stills it in time. “You’re a silence.”</p>
<p>Hux scoffs. “Am I that null to the Force?”</p>
<p>“It’s more than that,” Ren replies, and his eyes are dark waters. “It’s Starkiller. The Force is...It’s the combined energy of all living things--” </p>
<p>“So you tell me.”</p>
<p>“So when a single decision,” Ren continues, “—some scholars call it a shatterpoint—eliminates enough of that life, it leaves a rent. A Wound, technically. It’s a total void, and it’s... quiet.”</p>
<p>Hux rubs his temple. He’s too fucking exhausted for a religious lecture. He managed to avoid it earlier, even with Ren’s interest in the Kesh visit. </p>
<p>But now Ren wants to discuss some absolute bantha shit about how he, what, broke the Force? Ren thinks he’s some sort of metaphysical signal jammer?</p>
<p>Ren hears <em> voices </em>.</p>
<p>In his head.</p>
<p>Nothing Ren says is to be intellectually engaged with. (And especially not well past zero hundred hours.)</p>
<p>“If you say so,” Hux replies, monotone, dismissive.</p>
<p>If it comes out patronizing, Ren doesn’t seem to acknowledge it.</p>
<p>“I mean it,” he says instead, dogged. “But even before Starkiller, you’ve always-- I mean, to me, you’re--” Ren’s lips form a thin line, eyes drop to the pillowcase. “It helps.”</p>
<p>Hux flicks at the screen. “Always pleased to be <em> helpful </em>.”</p>
<p>“You don’t have to stay,” Ren says, simply, and somehow there’s more sadness in it than irritation. Than petition, even.</p>
<p>Hux pulls up the next report to avoid his eyes.</p>
<p>He finishes the Inner Rim treaty, then moves to a strategic profile of the Bright Jewel sector, then the latest TIE contract.</p>
<p>He’s reached the prospective re-determination clause, when he turns around on a breath. And lowers his datapad: Ren’s face has slackened with sleep, breathing slowed to a gentle rhythm.</p>
<p>Good. </p>
<p>He clearly needs the rest, despite the chances that it’ll be nightmares tonight, unless whatever’s in his head will leave him alone after haunting his waking hours.</p>
<p>Whatever it is.</p>
<p>There’s no way to know what to believe.</p>
<p>But whether this voice is a real external entity, some impossible non-embodiment of Ren’s powers, or the fabrication it sounds like, it explains. Quite a bit.</p>
<p>Ren’s acted irrational, though, but never <em> mad </em>. Broken, but never…mentally shattered.</p>
<p>But no matter what it is, or has promised, it clearly hurts. Has. For years.</p>
<p>(And there isn’t one fucking thing Hux can do to stop it. Fix it. Him.)</p>
<p>Hux tips his chin toward the vaulted ceiling, closes his eyes. He’s too fucking exhausted for this. He inhales, forces his eyes back open, and glances down at Ren. He’s so still right now. So deeply asleep he might even be vulnerable.</p>
<p>Three months ago, this was all Hux wanted. Ren’s guard down for one brief second longer, and Hux’s knife cold inside his sleeve, his blaster heavy under his greatcoat.</p>
<p>But that was three months ago. </p>
<p>The sheet has slipped off Ren’s shoulder, exposing mole-specked muscle to the cool air.</p>
<p>Before Hux can think, much less worry about startling Ren, he replaces the cover, then rises to get the hell out of here. </p>
<p>Ren doesn’t stir.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Content Warnings: Hux recalls his own psychological abuse by his father in fairly vague terms, comparing it to Kylo's by Snoke with a brief reference to physical injuries Kylo sustained | Kylo describes to Hux his canonical experience of hearing voices; Hux responds to what he perceives as a symptom of psychosis with insensitive language</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Canary</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>(now)</b>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What, precisely, are you looking for?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A level below the Bosthirdan temple’s central sanctuary, Hux chafes at his arms with stiff fingers. After what must be at least an hour down here, the cold stings the tips of them; by now it’s lodged somewhere in the joints, aching dull and steady. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren looks over his shoulder, but the shadows cast by the same silver runes as on the walls upstairs obscure most of his expression. “The source,” he replies, as imprecisely as seems humanly possible. “Whatever hub of the Dark Side they built this place on top of.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux sighs at the low ceiling, its dark stone glistens with perpetual dampness. Apparently this place never fully dries out, even out of flood season. A row of bumps overhead show the buds of stalactites: the work of swamp sediment, perhaps, and the constant dripping. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>How the hell anyone has found priceless artifacts in here is baffling; they’d have to be rusted beyond recognition.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A drop splashes onto the floor beside him. He pulls his cloak tighter. Ren’s wasting their time, and he’s getting clammier by the second.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And what if it’s like the ruin on--” he breaks off momentarily, stepping around the drip overhead.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Kesh,” Ren supplies, taut. “With no source, just established arbitrarily by Sith pioneers--no. We’re in the heart of the old Sith empire. Every temple has a source.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Because those were such a tremendous help last year.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren doesn’t turn around. “Our circumstances have changed.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No shit.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux would punch him in the back of the neck, if it wouldn’t require unfolding his arms and exposing them to the cold. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes,” he agrees instead, less matter-of-fact than he intends, “we no longer have a galaxy for you to throw away on this.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren whirls toward him, the motion like a wind in the heavy, still air of the tunnel. “I’m </span>
  <em>
    <span>trying </span>
  </em>
  <span>to get it back.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Of course,” Hux replies, “by wandering through yet another dilapidated religious establishment, looking for--” </span>
  <em>
    <span>Something you’ll never find, that doesn’t exist, that we’ll both wish you hadn’t by the end.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s too much to say, though, with Ren’s eyes carving into his face. When he’d rather get out of here than have their latest in a multi-year series of arguments in ruins. He stiffens his mouth into a firm line.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren looks at him for a moment too long, almost imploring, then turns, keeps moving. “If you’re so fucking miserable,” he replies, over his shoulder, his voice like it’s being pressed between two rocks, “go back to your factory job.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux could dignify that with the rationale that he’d be sacked by now anyway. No-comm, no-show. Express grounds for separation.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You keep telling me that,” he retorts instead, following Ren.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I didn’t order you here.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux ignores the fact that that’s true. “You could have at least recommended I wear something warmer.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A small, dark shape leaps out of their way, just a flicker in the silver light. It dissolves into the shadows with a soft slap of webbed feet.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren’s scoff sounds something like a laugh. “It isn’t that bad.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Or perhaps you’re desensitized,” Hux mutters.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s possible.” Ren’s steps reverb once, twice, hollow under the low ceiling. “Perhaps if you’d visited more places like this with me before, you’d be adjusting better.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux chafes his arms. “Yes, I’m certain that would have converted me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ve really missed your balanced commentary,” Ren returns.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ve really missed wandering aimlessly around every backwater in the Outer Rim.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren’s steps hitch for a moment, like he’s going to whip back around and stab a finger toward Hux’s face. He doesn’t. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“At least wandering around backwaters didn’t involve selling out the Order,” he says instead, low and caustic.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux bristles. He has no right. He has no fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>right </span>
  </em>
  <span>to invoke Hux’s last resort, the fucking cliff’s edge to which he’d been pushed. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>By Ren. And by bullshit </span>
  <em>
    <span>exactly </span>
  </em>
  <span>like this. (Except before, Ren claimed to feel something Hux couldn’t.) It was a slow-acting toxin, an invisible, undetectable chemweapon that you don’t notice until your lungs have dried out.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Speaking causationally—“ Hux starts, sharper than Ren.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But a sound stops him mid-thought. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s deep, low, like the grinding of rocks against each other: a murmur, broken abruptly by a harsh </span>
  <em>
    <span>crunch</span>
  </em>
  <span>, echoing up the passage from behind. It’s the sound the base in Precinct 47 made as Starkiller began to come apart.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux freezes, turns. Ren keeps walking. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Stop.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren’s boots squeak to a halt against the stone. “What?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux looks toward him from the corridor, all undisturbed shadow, unbroken lines of silver characters. “Didn’t you hear that?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” Ren says, “I was listening to you insult me.” He glances down the passage, then back at Hux, brows knitting. “What was it?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux waits a moment, straining into the darkness, listening for some echo, some aftershock: nothing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span> A structure this ancient is bound to do some level of structural grumbling over the millennia. And it’s dark, and this is unfamiliar terrain, and Hux’s reflexes are overactive, anyway.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Apparently nothing,” he says. “Let’s keep moving.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren looks at him for a moment, the glow from the runes silvering his irises. “Okay.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They continue in relative silence, the dim clicks of their boots broken only by the sporadic scurrying of subterranean minifauna, the patter of water from overhead. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eventually, the corridors start branching. Ren takes the ones on the right almost without exception, trending apparently toward some central hub based on where they started a level above. The tunnels slope vaguely downward, stretching impossibly far into silty earth that shouldn’t support much architecture below its surface.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The ancient Sith either had construction techniques that defied geological limitations, or managed to construct the tunnels so narrowly, pressed so tightly together, that they create the effect of multiple levels at the same depth: like peeling an onion, rather than planting one.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not that Hux can make any kind of determination from </span>
  <em>
    <span>walking </span>
  </em>
  <span>in them. By contrast, he lost track of the turns they made after the first two. The rest have blurred into the same darkness, same shadows, same unwinking runes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Touching the wall upstairs must have </span>
  <em>
    <span>activated </span>
  </em>
  <span>the whole temple, he assesses, for lack of anything better to worry about, trudging behind Ren through passage after passage. There’s no flickering on, no need to touch the stone again. Every turn they make, the lights are waiting for them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Once or twice, the grumbling repeats: the low crunch and grind of stone. But Ren seems unbothered by it--he doesn’t acknowledge it, anyway--and visibly, the place doesn’t change. It’s ridiculous to startle at it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux keeps walking.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>There’s no way of telling time here, either, any more than Hux can gauge the distance they’ve come or map back the turns Ren’s taken. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But the place didn’t look </span>
  <em>
    <span>this </span>
  </em>
  <span>expansive from outside. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And the thing about an onion is that it’s round</span>
  <em>
    <span>. </span>
  </em>
  <span>You either press in toward the middle, or keep circling the perimeter. Regardless, all of these dank tunnels look the same.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux pulls his cloak tighter, inhaling as deeply as he can between the cold, stale air and the relatively brisk pace. Another fork looms ahead: two dark mouths instead of one, twin lines of runes diverging between them at an acute angle. It looks like a silver </span>
  <em>
    <span>V </span>
  </em>
  <span>hovering in the blackness.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Surprisingly, Ren’s pace actually slows. His stride breaks, and he comes to a controlled stop just where the corridors branch off. It’s been too narrow to walk beside him, but the intersection is wide enough for both of them. Hux pauses at his side.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren studies the two entrances, gaze roving meticulously from one to the other. Scrutinizing. Reaching out, probably, for whatever thing he’s come here because he can’t feel. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In profile, the shadows still catch in the hollow of his cheek, showing too much of the shape of his skull. Hux looks away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well then,” he says, addressing the tunnel on the right, dead ahead of him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren’s jaw tightens. “I’m thinking.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I didn’t notice.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren’s exasperated silence is more of a </span>
  <em>
    <span>shut up </span>
  </em>
  <span>than if he’d said the words.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux clicks his tongue, nods vaguely left. “My vote is for that one.” He ignores Ren’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>shut up</span>
  </em>
  <span>’s out of habit, at this point.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Because </span>
  <em>
    <span>your</span>
  </em>
  <span> navigational advice is definitely credible,” Ren replies, eyes fixed on the arch of the near tunnel.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux stiffens his spine, ignoring the jab at his historic sense of direction. Or well, lack thereof. “We’re on equal footing here,” he say, on his dignity.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You would get lost in a single-cabin escape pod.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux tries not to laugh. “It’s perfectly normal to get turned around when there are no landmarks.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“‘Turned around.’” Ren snorts. “You mean </span>
  <em>
    <span>lost</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Call it what it is.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux freezes, the comeback he’d already prepared withering on his tongue. Drying his mouth. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Those words. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s heard nearly the same. Before. In rune-lit tunnels, echoing through-- </span>
  <em>
    <span>No. </span>
  </em>
  <span>It’s coincidence.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What did you say?” Hux asks, around what feels like a mouthful of gaberwool.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren turns toward him with a scoff, but his expression is almost totally deadpan. “What, you can mock my religion, but I suddenly can’t mock your semantics?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” Hux retorts, so controlled there’s a shameful hint of a tremor in it. The last time he heard those words. The last time, two cycles ago, he was asleep, dreaming of falling ceilings, rune-lit tunnels-- “Repeat exactly what you just said.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren’s brows knit, gaze softens like it does, his curiosity so open it’s almost vulnerable. “I said that you get </span>
  <em>
    <span>lost</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” he repeats, slowly. “So call it what it is.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s nothing. Coincidence. Obviously.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux is about to brush it off. Dismiss him with </span>
  <em>
    <span>whatever</span>
  </em>
  <span>--</span>
  <em>
    <span>I wasn’t paying attention.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But before he can get the words out, the temple groans again. A murmur in the corridor behind swells to an echo, a rumble. The </span>
  <em>
    <span>crunch-schink </span>
  </em>
  <span>of grinding rock. The corridor vibrates with it. It buzzes from the soles of Hux’s boots to his sternum.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In an adjacent tunnel, loose stone crumbles, crashes. It hits the floor with a second reverberation. Hux splays a hand on the wall, steadying himself, across the runes. Cracks spider beneath his touch--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he blinks.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you okay?” Ren’s voice is hollow against the tinnitus. His arm rises as if to touch Hux, to steady him, but drops back down. “I thought you ate enough to walk on.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What?” Hux returns, breath coming shallow in his own ears. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He shouldn’t be short of breath. He wasn’t. Thirty seconds ago. Before he--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His gaze drops from Ren’s face to the places where his hand meets the wall. The light comes through his skin, casting the bones black against the light. For all their brightness, though, the runes are cool under his palm. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And the wall is intact.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The wall is intact, and the tunnel in front of him hasn’t collapsed. There’s no echo of the crashes, no aftershock under his feet. The corridor is as still as it has been. The tinnitus fades, replaced by the frantic pounding of his pulse.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What the fuck,” he murmurs, dropping his hand from the wall. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He almost replaces it, though. His legs feel caught between phases of matter, half-evaporated. But he stands straighter, rather than leaning on </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything</span>
  </em>
  <span> for support, and all but locks his knees. He has years of practice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What the fuck, </span>
  <em>
    <span>what</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” Ren closes the narrow distance left between them, voice tightening with concern. “Do you need to sit down, or--”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” Hux replies, on a sharp intake of breath. “No,” he repeats, more evenly, then it’s out of his mouth before he can filter it, analyze it, verify it with anything beyond animal instinct: “There isn’t time.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What are you talking about?” Ren returns, and he’s clearly aiming for exasperation, but fear seeps through like a hyperfuel leak, slow but combustible. “I still have to get to the nave. I haven’t recovered my connection to the Dark. We aren’t done.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux’s hearts hammers in his ears, throbs through his whole body. Like a ticking chrono. He has no idea. He has no </span>
  <em>
    <span>notion </span>
  </em>
  <span>of what he’s talking about. All he knows is that they’re fucked down here. That he’s--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>That you’ve seen this place collapse? That you </span>
  </em>
  <span>dreamed </span>
  <em>
    <span>it on the shuttle trip here? For fuck’s sake, you were flashing back to Starkiller--</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Behind him, stones scrape. Ren’s gaze doesn’t move from his face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You--” Hux’s lips tremble around the words, and he sounds so </span>
  <em>
    <span>weak, </span>
  </em>
  <span>so small, and childish and-- “You didn’t hear that?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren’s brow furrows, mouth tugs uncertainly. “Hear what?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux doesn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>know </span>
  </em>
  <span>what. And there’s no time to assess what, no time to wonder, because what he </span>
  <em>
    <span>does </span>
  </em>
  <span>know--what he knows like the periodic table, like the containment formula for quintessence, like the dips and strains of Ren’s voice--is that they’re going to be buried beneath the rubble of this temple if they stand here arguing one </span>
  <em>
    <span>fucking </span>
  </em>
  <span>second longer.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux ignores the question. “We have to turn around.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What?” Ren says, genuinely incredulous now. “What are you--”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“This place is going to collapse,” Hux interrupts, voice crescendoing against his will. “The ceiling is going to cave in, and we’re going to be crushed under a hundred thousand metric tons of stone. We have to </span>
  <em>
    <span>go</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren’s fingers work at his side. “How do you know that?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We have to turn </span>
  <em>
    <span>around</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Hux says, and doesn’t answer him. Can’t. He holds Ren’s wide-eyed gaze, swallows. “And I don’t know the way out.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren searches Hux’s face--the microscope, as usual. Probing, perhaps, for whatever’s behind the admission of weakness. (</span>
  <em>
    <span>It’s survival instinct.</span>
  </em>
  <span>)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay,” he says, after a moment. “Okay, let’s move.” He turns and starts back down the corridor they came from, at twice the pace, not yet a jog but his fastest stride.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux follows close behind. His boot slides on a patch of water. He skids, gropes for the wall—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The ground shudders. Rock crunches somewhere behind, and the wall vibrates under Hux’s touch. Gravel showers down from overhead.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And Ren turns around. Looks past Hux, to the noise behind.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A speck of gravel clings to his hair. His eyes are wide, fear unmistakable in them. His lips part. He’s going to ask something Hux can’t answer.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The temple quivers. Falling stones crash somewhere in the darkness.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Just </span>
  <em>
    <span>go</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Hux says. His pulse hammers, and Ren stays put a second too long. “Move, damnit!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren turns without a word, picks up his pace considerably. The collapsing stones behind echo up the corridor in a rapid crescendo. The ground vibrates more with each step; between ancient crags and slick stones, it’s difficult to </span>
  <em>
    <span>run</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren manages it, though, navigating back through the web of tunnels like the route was programmed into him at a single glance. There’s no time for hesitation, for decision.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The roar grows with every step. The silver runes blur together at this pace, a vague shimmer in Hux’s periphery. Ren’s shape ahead is nothing but </span>
  <em>
    <span>motion</span>
  </em>
  <span>, one darker silhouette against the shadows down here. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The tunnels tilt at intervals. Hux’s vision narrows to the movement that is Ren, swimming with a netted overlay of static even in the blackness. His breath comes short. He can’t hear it over the tunnel, but he can feel it, like his lungs are half-full of the temple’s silt, can’t take in enough air.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His legs feel insubstantial, detached from him. The rest of him floats weightless above them. His hands are cold. His visions narrows.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He blinks, trying to clear the static as he runs. The runes flash red. It’s just the blood vessels in his eyelids. They’re back to silver. It’s the exertion. It must be.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren’s shape shrinks in front of Hux. Sparks filter his line of sight. Distant, incoherent constellations. His boot skids on loose scree, and he catches himself on the wall.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren must sense the motion, whirls almost immediately. “Come </span>
  <em>
    <span>on</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The floor quakes so strongly Ren braces himself against the tremor. Hux glances behind, a moment ahead of the inevitable crash.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Just a few meters back, the runes have splintered, shot through with spidering cracks in the stone.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Fuck</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Ren breathes, then repeats, “Come on.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I am.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux’s legs work mechanically as the clatter behind swells. It’s deafening, like a physical substance filling his ears, the cavities in his chest, the marrow of every bone in his body. He would cover his ears if it would help, if his feets weren’t sliding at every step.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The corridors run together. Streaks of black and silver like watercolor on the margin of Hux’s consciousness. His lungs finally burn, but he can’t slow down. He can feel his wild pulse, even if it’s too loud to hear it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The corridors run together. Shadows. Static. The unmoored lightness somewhere below Hux’s ribs.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>At first, it’s just another floater. Another trick of the spidering runes, the sparks of light drifting in and out of Hux’s field of vision. But it slowly swells: a beam of white light that frames Ren’s outline, sends a stabbing finger down the darkness of the corridor.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Daylight.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The air is too thick with sediment to smell it, but a current that isn’t the suction of the collapsing building drifts down the tunnel from far ahead.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A pile of rubble rests to Hux’s left, some entrance that’s already caved in, a high arch stacked with black stone. The sanctuary they first entered. The dome must be falling in. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The arch’s edges splinter. A crash resounds from behind it. The blank pedestal in the center must be buried. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The last several meters are a straight line. The passage broadens enough that Hux can catch up with Ren. His boots keep sliding, though, like his ankles are bending the wrong direction or his feet are half-asleep.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren’s hand moves toward him, as if to steady him. As if he were about to </span>
  <em>
    <span>fall.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The light grows and grows, until the tunnel is gray, and Hux is blinking to adjust to it. Until his boots cross the threshold beside Ren’s. He can’t stop moving, not even to make sure he can </span>
  <em>
    <span>see. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He watches his unsteady feet, follows Ren down the broad steps outside. A faultline now runs directly down the center of them. The stone buckles underfoot. Something solid wraps around Hux’s right arm. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s running on gravel, on soft silt, on clay mud, into churning, murky water. It fills his boots, drags down the hem of his cloak, tepid, thick with algae. He stumbles to a stop once it’s up to his knees, weighing all of him down.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He inhales, shallow, ragged, bent nearly double. He can hear his breathing. His heart pounds in his ears. The pressure on his arm relents slightly, and a glance down shows it’s Ren’s hand, knuckles tight.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you--” he starts, but a deafening </span>
  <em>
    <span>boom</span>
  </em>
  <span> cuts him off, like a missile exploding. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Water splashes into Hux’s face, displaced by the impact. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It pulls Hux’s gaze toward the source. Back toward the temple, where--through a screen of gray dust--the black stone wall crumples inward. It lands on top of the rubble with a rumbling echo. A few more stones drop, each a soft knock.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The surface of the water ripples with low shockwaves, which deform around Hux’s knees. The sound fades to a vague reverberation, to the lapping of the water at the strand of silt, the way it sucks at the fabric of Hux’s clothes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His pulse hasn’t slowed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fuck,” he breathes. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Fuck.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren’s fingers loosen on his sleeve. “Okay?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux shakes his arm free. His pulse pounds in his temples. His whole body is cold. “Yes,” he tries to say, but his voice is weak, slurry.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren holds his gaze but agrees to drop his hand. His eyes cut between the rubble and Hux’s face. “What happened in there?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux clears his throat. “How should I know?” The clearing accomplishes little. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Damnit</span>
  </em>
  <span>. “It was your fucking temple.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren’s jaw tightens. “No. I mean, something </span>
  <em>
    <span>happened</span>
  </em>
  <span> in there. With you. What was it?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As the adrenaline recedes, memory returns to perfect clarity. The crashes Ren couldn’t hear. The impossible image of the wall, splintered under his touch. Ren’s words, a direct echo of--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>No.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>(How?)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux severs the thought. “I told you I don’t know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You knew it was going to come down,” Ren replies, taut with intent. “You said so before it started.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>What was that, you dreamed it, what was it what happened--</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m an engineer.” Hux stiffens, collecting what he can of his dignity. “I can observe these things.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re a </span>
  <em>
    <span>nuclear</span>
  </em>
  <span> engineer.” Before Hux can retort, Ren’s gaze drops. “What’s wrong with your hands?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux didn’t notice. They’re quivering at his sides, so white they damn near </span>
  <em>
    <span>glow </span>
  </em>
  <span>against his wet cloak. “Adrenaline,” he explains. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Some</span>
  </em>
  <span> of us have normal physiological reactions to near-death experiences.” His voice emerges brittle in his own ears.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You need to sit down,” Ren says, somehow dismissive and intent at once. His gaze roams to Hux’s right.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux follows his line of sight to their guide’s skiff, drifting on the water perhaps eight meters away, well out of the temple’s impact zone. Good thing. It would have probably capsized in that final wave.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren lifts his hand, yells, “hey,” across the water, like he’s trying to flag her down.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The guide stands at the stern, hand on the tiller. She makes no audible response, but the skiff’s motivator whirs to life, gray-green water churning white in its wake. She loops around, the insect-hum of the engine swelling as the boat approaches.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux shivers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We should get on from the shore,” Ren says, nodding back toward the island. Dust hangs over it like a pall of smoke.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes,” Hux agrees, and takes a tentative step, wading in its direction.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But as soon as he moves, his vision tunnels, spots erasing Ren from his periphery, swimming across the gray horizon behind the rubble. His chest feels too light, his head too heavy. He sways on his feet.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fuck.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren’s hand encircles his arm again, bracing, in the darkness.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux gropes for purchase, lands on Ren’s elbow. His vision resolves again; his knuckles jut yellow through his skin, the leather pliant in his grasp. His chest contracts, and he can’t seem to fill his lungs all the way. The thick air isn’t helping, nor the mildewed reek of algae and dying trees.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren’s eyes search his face, lit with the naked, childish fear Hux would know in any lifetime. “What is it?” he asks, softly, his lips parted a second too long.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It isn’t as if Hux can tell him. There’s nothing </span>
  <em>
    <span>to </span>
  </em>
  <span>tell him. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I dreamed a temple? I dreamed its collapse? I dreamed runes running through it, the walls bleeding light, and I dreamed your voice?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>For all Ren knows, Hux has never remembered a single dream he’s ever had in his entire life. </span>
  <em>
    <span>And something else, you saw the cracks-- </span>
  </em>
  <span>That’s nothing to tell him. There’s nothing to tell him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux drops his hand from Ren’s elbow, though Ren doesn’t let go of his arm. He holds Ren’s gaze. “I </span>
  <em>
    <span>don’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren’s lips firm into a line that’s more worried than incredulous. The skiff approaches, and Ren makes no move toward the shore.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The skiff glides to a stop in front of them, and Lurrill climbs out of the steering area in silence, eyes darting like the nervous kid she is. She casts a weighted ladder over the boat’s grimy side.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s a single step up, then over the side and into the skiff. Ren goes first, bracing himself with his right wrist, pulling up with his hand. Stale water drips onto the metal floorboard with a sound like rainfall.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux’s legs, for all the water soaked into his boots and every square centimeter of fabric below his knees, still feel no more substantial than the nearest floe of algae. His hands tremble as he grips the sides of the ladder, of the boat. Ren extends his hand, but he needs his own balance; Hux doesn’t take it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The wet floorboard reels under Hux’s feet, and he all but collapses onto the bench. His boots are soaked. He needs to take them off, dump the water, but his hands twitch in his lap, and he isn’t sure he’ll have any luck with the wet laces. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He bends forward to try them anyway, but the blood rushes to his head, throbbing in his temples. He sits back up slowly, trying to get the pressure to recede.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren’s still standing in the center of the skiff. As if through a fog, he gestures toward Hux. His voice sounds distant, distorted: “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Get him some water. Get him some fucking water.</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux stiffens his spine, clenches his hands in his lap, digging his nails into the heels of his palms. He can’t pass out. </span>
  <em>
    <span>You will not pass out, you are not permitted, you will sit upright, you will show no further weakness--</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He needs a distraction. He absorbs every detail of the skiff in sharp resolution. It’s individual images, though, rather than a cohesive whole: the guide climbing down from the tiller to a water tank, the dirty water around Ren’s boots as he grabs a bottle from her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The way it ripples as he trudges the two meters back to Hux and the bench, and the way the girl keeps nodding wordlessly, all three eyes wide with nerves. She’s looking everywhere but the pile of stones that used to be the temple.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux’s bones dig into the metal of the bench. He’s sitting backward. He and Ren faced away from the stern on the way here. He needs to turn </span>
  <em>
    <span>around--</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Ren’s pushing a water bottle into his hand. “Here,” he says, and it would be an order if not for the fear in his voice. “Drink this.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux does.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>In contrast to the trip here, Lurrill pilots in silence. No anecdotes, no scientific tidbits. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Over the side of the skiff, gray ridges rise off the turbid water where it parts around the hull. The boat sits a bit deeper in the water now than before, most likely due to the small reservoir behind the bench where water dripped off of Hux and Ren and into the floorboard.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The acidic swamp smell is going to stay in Hux’s fucking boots. His skin is disgusting. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He and Ren turned aft before the skiff started moving a few minutes ago. Since then, Hux can all but feel Lurrill’s gaze boring into their shoulder blades, one eye on the route, the other two on the pilgrims who brought down the ruins.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That’s how it’s going to get spun, of course. Her employer, Nahur, is going to be seeking somewhere, anywhere, to put the liability for what happened. No matter that the building was ancient, that its infrastructure was bound to give way at some point. That under normal circumstances, Nahur could be held accountable for advertising that it was safe to enter.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(Under normal circumstances, too, Hux and Ren would have a fleet’s worth of cutting-edge artillery to shore up their side of any dispute.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As things are, Nahur has lost one of his primary sources of income on their watch. </span>
  <em>
    <span>And </span>
  </em>
  <span>they already owe him more credits than Hux has, courtesy of Ren’s impulsive cantina bargaining. Or rather his unmerited self-assurance. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux shivers against the breeze off the water. His boots and socks have dried to simply </span>
  <em>
    <span>damp</span>
  </em>
  <span> by now, but his feet still sting with cold. He’s laced his fingers tightly in his lap against the tremors, but he can still feel it like a vibration in his joints. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Somehow it’s the least of his problems at the moment. His hands and circulation will recover, but if he and Ren don’t pay that xeno what they owe, a blaster bolt will cause a slightly more permanent impairment.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And the only plan they’ve ever had for avoiding that is Ren’s ridiculous—</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You should eat something.” Ren’s voice is low over the thrum of the motivator.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Before Hux can tell him he isn’t hungry, Ren reaches inside his jacket and extracts a ration bar. He rips the cellophane with his teeth, then proffers the bar to Hux, the unspoken order to break off as much as he wants. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux’s hands are so unsteady, it takes two tries to tear off about a third of it. He takes a small bite, which lands in the pit of his stomach like wet duracrete.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren’s inhaling his own portion. It’s rather remarkable he managed to keep it on his person this long </span>
  <em>
    <span>without </span>
  </em>
  <span>devouring it, when he has this much starvation to make up for.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux gives him a moment to eat in peace, trying to get some more of his own down, since he </span>
  <em>
    <span>should</span>
  </em>
  <span>. (Ren is right about that much.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But the whole problem where their last meal is about to be a split bilberry ration bar on a rusty skiff in the middle of a swamp takes precedence. And Ren holds the easiest solution.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You still don’t feel anything?” Hux checks.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren swallows, then snaps, “No.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Of course he does. Of fucking course.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We owe that gangster eleven hundred credits,” Hux points out, voice sharpening with every word. “Eleven hundred credits which we do not possess, and which you have no way of convincing him he doesn’t need.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The cellophane crinkles as Ren’s fingers tense. “I </span>
  <em>
    <span>know</span>
  </em>
  <span> that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So what are we going to do?” Hux asks, more to emphasize the problem here than because Ren is likely to have a backup plan.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t know,” Ren says, looking up from the bar.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux balls his free hand in his lap. “You don’t know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I thought this would work!” Ren retorts, dropping his volume to stay out of the guide’s earshot. “It was supposed to </span>
  <em>
    <span>work</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well,” Hux replies, coolly, “perhaps you should have considered an alternative possibility. Before promising that criminal more credits than we have.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren’s fingers dig into the wrapper. “It was the only way to get us out here.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And a lot of good that did.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I had to try this.” Anger swells in Ren’s, a harsh edge like a distant crack of thunder. “How else could I?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux ignores the specter of </span>
  <em>
    <span>this</span>
  </em>
  <span>, the nagging voice asking what the fuck they’ll do if they even survive the return to Jerunga, after failing so spectacularly here.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The </span>
  <em>
    <span>if </span>
  </em>
  <span>is an impassable asteroid field, a new block at every turn. He can’t let his thoughts run past it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t know,” he retorts. Getting to Sith ruins is Ren’s fucking business. “Steal a skiff. Not get involved with these types.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Ren says, with a scoff that’s nothing like amused. “Yeah, steal a skiff, get ‘turned around,’ and die of exposure in a fucking swamp. I’m really glad I brought a strategic mastermind.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“At least I’m capable of considering multiple scenarios,” Hux shoots back, acerbic. “As opposed to blurting out whatever reckless bullshit will get me my way at the moment, without the slightest thought for what might follow.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren’s voice drops perilously. “Then why didn’t you handle the negotiations, if you can think so clearly?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re the one with the criminal background.” Hux crushes the corner-bite of ration bar that he’s still holding. “It made sense.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And you didn’t question it </span>
  <em>
    <span>once </span>
  </em>
  <span>until it didn’t work.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I had hoped I could trust you,” Hux says. There’s ice in his own voice, but he makes no effort to thaw it. “On this one simple thing.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I used to hope I could trust </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> on a lot of things,” Ren retorts, breathlessly fast. But he seems to cut himself off. “I guess we have to live with disappointment.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux pops his lips. “Good thing I’m used to it by now.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>After seven goddamn years with you, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he doesn’t have to add.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren looks out at the line of mangroves. “Me too.” (The guttered thing in his eyes says Hux didn’t do the disappointing.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux has nothing to say to that. Once Ren reaches the point of self-criticism, he’s always harsher than Hux could ever be. And Hux doesn’t currently have the energy to drive home the point. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Instead, he eats the flattened bit of ration bar, wipes the stickiness left on his fingers onto his damp cloak, and stares straight ahead.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Somewhere above the cloud cover, the sun must be going down; the ash-gray sky has dimmed to charcoal at the horizon. It reflects dunly on the flat surface of the water and catches around the opaque spans of algae, blurring everything outside the skiff to monochrome.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The skiff’s motor thrums low in Hux’s skull, and a headache starts to gather above his left eye, a single throbbing point that’s worse than the nebulous lightheadedness. The edges of his vision glitter with floaters. His eyelids feel like kettlebells.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After a few minutes, he lets them fall shut, but the low jolt as the skiff hits an algae patch pulls him immediately back to full alertness. It’s too much effort to keep them open, though, and they sink closed again--but a stale-smelling crosswind sets off his reflexes and drives a spike through his temple.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He drifts like this, oscillating between something less than waking and something less than sleep, until the grayness blunts the headache, and he’s numb, anchorless.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The hum of the motivator is the only constant. He slips in and out.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s twenty kilometers off the coast from the Academy on Arkanis, the ocean breeze mussing his hair, teasing the hem of his tunic. Spray flies up from the waves, and rain drizzles down from low clouds. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s five years old, and they had to flee the burning Academy by sea-skimmer. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“What did I tell you, Armitage?” </span>
  </em>
  <span>the Commandant keeps saying, every time Hux cuts his eyes back toward the flames. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“What did I fucking tell you? I told you not to look that way.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The ocean is gray, and the sky is gray. Out to sea, a monster’s barnacled tail dips beneath the waves. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So what do you think we should do?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren’s voice startles Hux out of the fog, grounding him on the skiff, in the marsh, near the ruined temple. Hux blinks at him, but Ren’s face swims with static. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m thinking about it,” Hux manages, but his voice emerges bleary, fragile, in his own ears. His headache reassembles; a frisson of pain lances through his temple. His hands quiver in his lap.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren studies him for a moment. “Don’t,” he sighs, seeming to change his mind about something. “For now. You clearly need to rest.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux bites down against a wince. “I’m all right.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Just sleep.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m all right.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The motivator, though, buzzes too loud to think. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>When Hux wakes up, his hands are just as bad. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he still has just four hundred credits to his name. And he and Ren have destroyed Nahur’s primary source of illicit income, or. Well. Set foot on the wrong stone to bring down the whole thing and any valuable artifacts left inside it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And the lights of what must be Jerunga glow yellow ahead, blurred together by fog, but nonetheless growing closer and more distinct. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The worst of it, yet the last datapoint to materialize: he’s slept on Ren, for lack of anywhere else.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Shit,” he breathes, peeling his clammy cheek off Ren’s lapel.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey,” Ren murmurs, noticing he’s awake. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Behind Ren, from this angle, algae glows bioluminescent on the water, casting his face cerulean from below.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux makes to sit up properly, but even the slight movement drains the blood from his skull. His vision tunnels briefly, and he tries to brace himself, splaying his tremulous fingers across his thighs. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren catches him, wraps his hand around his bicep again. “You okay?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux nods, the wave of vertigo barely clearing. His headache is gone, at least, which is something.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren can see the rest of the lie, though: Hux’s hands are fucked. They tremble over his lap like there’s too much blood pumping through them, but the skin is cold, clammy with the night-mist. An adrenaline rush that won’t subside.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We’re almost back,” Ren says, nodding to the lights ahead. His grip loosens slightly--less vice than simple support.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux inhales the thick air. “I see that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Instead of elaborating, Ren throws a furtive glance over his shoulder, then leans closer to Hux, still holding onto his arm. “Give me the blaster.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What?” Hux hisses back. “Is this the only course of action you could come up with?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Give it to me,” Ren repeats, almost placating. He does </span>
  <em>
    <span>not </span>
  </em>
  <span>answer the question. “We’re almost back, and you--” His gaze falls to Hux’s hands. “--can’t use it right now.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Hux </span>
  </em>
  <span>can’t use it right now? He looks pointedly from Ren’s empty right sleeve to where his hand rests on Hux’s own arm.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You can’t even chamber a shot while holding it,” Hux says.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren holds his gaze, less commanding than imploring. “So chamber it for me first.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It goes without saying that the gun needs to be ready to go. That it’s more than likely their sole hope of </span>
  <em>
    <span>possibly </span>
  </em>
  <span>making it out of this, with no Force, no credits, and no military advantage.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And Hux has zero certainty he could hit any sort of target, with his hands shaking like Ren’s used to. </span>
  <em>
    <span>After a dream, after a vision, after the Force-- </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(No. Absolutely not.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Give me the knife,” Hux returns, more or less acquiescing. “I can still do some damage with that like this. If it comes to that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren’s lip twitches. “I guess,” he says, dropping Hux’s arm to reach into his jacket.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux checks that the cloak shields their arms before slipping the pistol out of his waistband. The metal is frigid even against his chilled skin. His hands tremble around the blaster’s grip, which they haven’t done since he was eight years old, and the firearms instructor said that every cadet’s did, their first time</span>
  <em>
    <span>.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He manages to switch it into cocked position, though, then proffers it to Ren, unsteady finger safely out of the trigger well. Ren’s gaze lingers for a second too long on the tremor, on the gleam of the blaster. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Perhaps he’s thinking that Hux could shoot him. Perhaps he’s thinking that there was a time when he would have, without hesitation. Perhaps he’s thinking what Hux is: that it’s a shame about Hux’s hands right now, because he’s an even better marksman than Ren is.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux takes the knife, freeing up Ren’s hand to accept the blaster. Ren grabs it with skeletal, steady fingers, slides it into the same jacket pocket the knife just came out of. Hux compulsively traces the crack in the folded knife’s hilt, slips it into his trousers pocket, then does his best to lace his fingers in his lap.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well?” he asks, fixing his eyes on Ren. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren drags his hand through his hair. “I could tell you what I’m thinking now,” he seems to concede. “Or you could try to get some more rest.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m fine,” Hux snaps back.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sure,” Ren scoffs, but at least doesn’t condescend again. He knows better. Being less than fine has seldom stopped either of them before.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The city lights waver in the mist ahead, and Hux pulls his cloak tighter around his shoulders. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Resin</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>(now)</b>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As the skiff cuts through the last few meters of mist, two things become obvious to Hux as the craft approaches the city lights and the row of quays: </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Firstly, that the gangster </span>
  <em>
    <span>Ren</span>
  </em>
  <span> picked to do business with is apparently overprotective of his cash deals. Evidence: He's brought five armed criminals to deal with two unfortunate Teharan monks. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mist and shadows obscure the enforcers’ faces, but their silhouettes rear up against the yellow lamplight, unmistakable: the frills and spikes of three fellow Niktos, the pointed headtails of a Togruda, and--truly fantastic--a Devaronian.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Second and consequently: that whatever semblance of a plan Hux and Ren had fabricated for </span>
  <em>
    <span>dealing</span>
  </em>
  <span> with Nahur and whatever muscle he brought was spectacularly bad.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Even after Hux’s criticisms, additions, and modifications, the probability that Hux bullshitting them as a deterrent while Ren quietly drew the blaster was going to get them off of Jerunga’s docks in one piece was hilariously low.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Now, however, approaching the dock they left this morning, hilariously low has dropped to absolutely zero. There’s been a rogue variable. An unanticipated factor. Of course there has.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux cuts his eyes at Ren as the skiff’s motivator powers down, and its hull knocks against the wooden dock, water sighing around the metal. Somewhere back in the swamp, amphibians croak and trill.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux jerks his head toward the wall of tattoos and rifles that is Nahur’s team.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I know</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Ren mouths back, with a </span>
  <em>
    <span>so-what</span>
  </em>
  <span> expression and the subtle ghost of a shrug.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s all Hux can do not to roll his eyes, rub his temples. Jump back to the tiller and attempt a last-minute hijacking. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But of course, he and Ren ruled that out an hour ago, along with several variations on using their last four hundred credits to bribe the guide into reporting them dead: Ren said he’d heard her comm her employer and report the “incident” while Hux was asleep.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“Fuck,” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Hux had said, </span>
  <em>
    <span>“we could have done something sooner if--” I hadn’t been falling apart, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he couldn’t get out.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren had shaken his head as if he’d heard it. </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Even </span>
  </em>
  <span>I </span>
  <em>
    <span>couldn’t get us back to the city in the dark.”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux </span>
  <em>
    <span>had </span>
  </em>
  <span>rolled his eyes then--but he’d taken the point. Nahur would be waiting for them, pissed off over the collapsed temple and expecting more credits than they have, and there was little that could be done about it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And Nahur </span>
  <em>
    <span>is </span>
  </em>
  <span>waiting for them, with more backup than Hux projected. Lurrill the guide clanks around at the stern, cabling the skiff, and Hux looks from the line of shadows back to Ren. Ice crawls up his spine, and he leans closer to Ren.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What if they know?” he hisses.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren blinks once, but catches on fast. “Who we are?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux buries his nails in the meat of his palm. His hands are still less than steady, but tensing them helps momentarily, at least. “This is </span>
  <em>
    <span>overkill </span>
  </em>
  <span>for a couple of pilgrims.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It could be standard practice for them,” Ren whispers back, sounding less optimistic than simply </span>
  <em>
    <span>stubborn. </span>
  </em>
  <span>“Perhaps a credit goes a long way here.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Behind Hux, Lurrill steps up from the tiller stand onto the dock. Water squelches around the skiff with the lessened weight, blue-glowing algae wavering on its surface. In the sallow light, the vibrant shade looks diseased.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Guess we’ll find out,” Ren murmurs, rising. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux flexes his fingers and follows him up, over the side of the boat, and onto the quay. Dark spots briefly swarm his line of vision, but he blinks them back, collects his hands behind his back in parade rest.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The military posture has got to be making him the least convincing monk in galactic history. However, it beats balling his fists at his sides like a child ready to scrap, or worse, letting them hang loose, trembling. He cards through his memory, cueing up the opening line he mentally rehearsed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Nahur speaks first.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, </span>
  <em>
    <span>mes frères</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” The xeno’s voice booms across two meters of damp, mildewed wood. The chemical lamplight catches in the gold coating his facial spikes. “I hear you prayed down our temple.”</span>
</p>
<p><span>Hux stiffens, but forces his voice blase. He hasn’t lost all his art. (And this much is on-script.) “As we saw it, </span><em><span>your</span></em> <em><span>temple </span></em><span>nearly buried us alive.”</span></p>
<p>
  <span>“Is that so?” Nahur purses his reptilian excuse for lips. “If I believed in your religion, I might claim you put a hex on it. I might ask you for additional compensation.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We would never wilfully damage a sacred site.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s been called a place of evil,” Nahur replies, evenly. “I hear some religions wouldn’t tolerate that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We’re--” Hux fumbles for verbiage. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>--neutral</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren’s scoff isn’t quite inaudible.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux ignores him. At least he hasn’t tried to chime in yet. (As he--Hux’s resident veteran of organized crime--at some point inevitably will.) And it isn’t like he can tell him to fuck off while Nahur’s speaking anyway.</span>
</p>
<p><span>“Fortunately for you, </span><em><span>mes frères,</span></em><span>” Nahur says, stepping forward. He’s in slightly more practical garb tonight--vest and polished boots, no more silk suit.</span> <span>“I am not a man of faith, and I’m prepared to believe that whatever you did at that ruin was unintentional. We’ll—“ The Nikto pauses, gestures to his backup. “—therefore only require the eleven hundred creds you owe us, plus an extra seven hundred for endangering my guide.”</span></p>
<p>
  <span>The guide in question has disappeared behind him, unarmed and wide-eyed. What must be her footsteps echo as she leaves the dock for home. This isn’t her side of the business.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“An additional charge?” Hux returns, his incredulity mostly feigned. This part, at least, he and Ren anticipated. “When you failed to warn us the place was in danger of collapse?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nahur spreads his hands with a clink of bangles. “I informed you it may not be safe conditions out there during the wet season.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux tightens his knuckles behind his back. “We understood that to refer to flooding. And we assumed no liability for your guide’s safety, under any circumstances.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You might offer a gratuity for her troubles.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We might,” Ren cuts in at last, sharply. “Had we known in advance that we were putting her at risk.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And had we been able to allocate sufficient credits to compensate her,” Hux amends. He aims for demureness, but it isn’t comfortable. “I believe we mentioned last night we’ve barely enough credits for fuel.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Is that so,” Nahur says, studying first Hux’s face, then Ren’s with glassy reptilian eyes. “I’ll take three hundred then. For her pains.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>More haggling. Fucking perfect. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We can’t do three hundred,” Ren retorts, before Hux can deter this bullshit. It would be fine as a stalling tactic, but what they’re stalling for at this point, Hux has no idea. They can’t afford the base fee, much less a tip.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nahur bares a mouth of too-small lizard teeth. “Two-fifty.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“My counterpart just told you we don’t have it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How much </span>
  <em>
    <span>do</span>
  </em>
  <span> you have?” Nahur returns, so blandly it could be</span>
  <em>
    <span>, “Some mist this evening, yes?”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux misses no such beat. “We’re under no obligation to disclose that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I sure hope you have my eleven hundred at least, </span>
  <em>
    <span>mes frères</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” Nahur tilts his head to one side, and it’s clearly some sort of signal. The five xenos behind him step up slowly, a series of hollow thunks on the quay’s wood. “I’d hate to think you holy men meant to cheat me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In Hux’s periphery, Ren shifts closer to him, leaving less than a centimeter between their wrists.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s faced down far worse at Ren’s side than a half-dozen undereducated xenos. But that doesn’t change the fact that the xenos are the ones with the submachine rifles.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux swallows. “We would never intend such a thing. However, we would—” He inhales, assembling his verbiage. “--beg some forgiveness of you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m generally not the forgiving sort.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Nonetheless, we ask you to find it in your nature.” It sounds so fawning, so flimsy, that it would kill the Commandant all over again to hear it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nahur hmms indeterminately.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux takes the opening. “When we entered the temple’s sanctuary,” he says, back on script, “we immediately knew ourselves to be on, ah, sacred ground. We cast aside our bags, removed our shoes, and sat down.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“To meditate,” Ren adds. Unnecessary clarification.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes,” Hux says, thinly, “to meditate. We stayed so... reverencing... the Force, until the room began to shake.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren picks up from there, uninvited. “At first we thought it was the Force itself, the power we’d sought. But we knew we had to get out when the ceiling started to splinter. We put our boots back on and ran—“</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And in our panic failed to pick up the bag containing most of our credits,”  Hux finishes with the crux of it, as Ren’s delivery is unreliable. “All we can now offer is three hundred.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nahur’s thin lip curls. “That’s an awfully convenient story.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s simply unfortunate.” Hux barely stops himself from spreading his hands. “We would ask you to accept that amount, considering your liability for allowing us to enter an unstable structure with no forewarning.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sounds to me like you don’t think my services were worth the price you agreed to.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We’d be happy to pay it as agreed,” Ren says. Hopefully only Hux can detect the thunder beneath his tone. “If we had the credits.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m starting to wonder if you ever intended to.” Nahur examines his bracelets. They clink together too loudly, grating directly into Hux’s ears. “Eleven hundred credits buys you a lot on Bosthirda.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The lamps glitter too bright, yellow light scattering on the mist. The headache lances back through Hux’s skull like a blaster bolt.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He blinks against it. “Had we been killed,” he manages, around the fresh weakness in his voice, “you’d be receiving no payment at all.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t know about that,” Nahur drawls. “You said you had an abbot back on Tehar, right? One you could wire for fuel credits? I might have just looked up his frequency.” He takes a step closer to Hux. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The bracelets are deafening. Hux’s legs feel like a hologram attached to his body, insubstantial, cutting in and out.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nahur keeps going, baring his teeth again. “Luckily, I don’t have to. I’ve got you good men to dial it for me. I imagine your monastery could cover your charges, plus a nice settlement for my guide and my source of income.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“They can’t,” Ren says, flatly, two syllables like blows.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Can’t what, </span>
  <em>
    <span>mon frère</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” the Nikto asks. “Pay up?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Be reached,” Ren supplies, a bit rehearsed. He’s always lied less easily than Hux, but it’s presumably less obvious to someone who doesn’t have his facial tells memorized.  “We heard news from home last night. A storm took down the monastery’s comms unit. No telling when it’ll be back up.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Another convenient story.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>Shit. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Nahur turns around, makes eye contact with his Togruda. “Merrona, have you ever even heard of Tehar?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, boss.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I assure you it exists,” Hux puts in, around his heavy tongue.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well--” Nahur clucks his tongue. “--until your ‘abbot’ can be reached, you’ll just have to work off your debt in the meantime. Might be faster.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That wasn’t in any script.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Bolts to the head, yes, but capture, no. Better to start a firefight first. Anything but that. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But his thoughts are static, he can’t even signal to Ren--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Work off our debt?” Ren retorts, and if he had his abilities, the Nikto would be clawing at his throat right now. “When it’s your fault we went in there and lost our credits?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As things are, Nahur shrugs. “The liability is yours.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The mist seems to crawl up his sleeves, soak into his skin, chill him to the marrow. The edges of his vision shimmer space-black. He buries his nails in the heels of his hand. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Focus, idiot.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You were obligated to inform us of such a clause,” Hux manages. Black spots swim across his line of vision, and he isn’t going to pass out, he isn’t. He isn’t.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You went at your own risk,” Nahur insists, without so much as straining his voice. “You should’ve looked out for your money.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You should’ve warned us that place was going to collapse.” Hux’s voice is distant in his own ears, disembodied.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I couldn’t have known that,” the xeno says.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux swallows. Or tries to. “We couldn’t have, either.” He isn’t going to pass out. He isn’t. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nahur’s lips move, but the buzzing in Hux’s skull drowns out any sound. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The temperature seems to drop ten degrees. The mist thickens. Rolls in like smothering gray clouds. The lamplight filters through them faint and sallow. All definite shapes disappear.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>(It’s in your head, you’re unconscious, you’re dreaming--)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The mist thins just as quickly, but clings to the dock in shreds. It’s as if the dock has extended another ten meters into the swamp, and Hux is looking at Nahur, the lampposts, the weapons from the end of it.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>There’s no sound.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The fog wreathes the xenos. Ren is a shadow next to him. He reaches into the darkness that is his jacket. A blue plasma bolt flickers through the gray.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The image flickers. Resets like it never happened.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The xenos step forward. The Devaronian reaches into the shadow that is Ren, as if to grab him. Hux’s hands are bound behind his back. He can’t move them. He’s in a cellar, a cell. Dirt floor. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Mist crawls. White noise roars.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The dock resolves. Hux is watching from above. At the end stand two darknesses. One insubstantial, weak at the edges. The other shot through with ultrared fault lines. The splintered one moves toward Nahur.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He’s back in his body. He’s stepped forward; he just said something he didn’t hear. Nahur puts his back to him, addresses his Devaronian.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The Devaronian nods. They’re holding a rifle, something like a bandolier across their front. They turn, and it isn’t just a rifle. It’s a repeater cannon, connected to a tibanna tank on their back.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>A blue bolt flickers through the gray. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Light flares.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>A gold bolt.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux blinks.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Darkness covers his field of vision, then that too clears, in a widening circle like bloodflow returning to the head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His ears ring, but his feet are firm on the dock. Nahur stands two meters in front of him, Ren close beside him, in stark definition. Amphibians chirp in the swamp behind him, over the ringing in his ears.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You aren’t going to-- Indenture us,” Ren’s saying, looking askance at Hux. A question coalesces in his eyes, and Hux wouldn’t have the answer, even if there were time to provide it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He hasn’t fainted. He’s on his feet just where he was, with Ren clearly filling in the argument where he left off. </span>
  <em>
    <span>(Spaced out.)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Fuck</span>
  <em>
    <span>.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nahur smiles in a way that’s probably supposed to be winsome. Placating. “I’m afraid that’s your only option if--“</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux cuts him off. “Do you have a commlink?” he asks. His voice is weak, tinny in his own ears. His hands have dropped bloodless to his sides; he curls them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn’t know what he’s doing. What he’s saying.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Only that he saw the only possible opportunity to blow up a massive canister of enough highly combustible gas to dismember any sentient being in a three meter radius. The enforcers are just holding--</span>
  <em>
    <span>brandishing</span>
  </em>
  <span>--their blasters. Take them all out with one well-aimed shot, and they won’t have a chance to raise their weapons, return fire.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Of course I do,” the Nikto says, as if from the bottom of a deep cistern.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Let me use it,” Hux replies. There’s nothing else to say. “I’m going to try our abbot’s satellite comm.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nahur dips his head, then turns briefly, facial spikes glittering with the motion. He walks toward the line of muscle. The Devaronian has to have the commlink. They have to.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux’s pulse is too faint, skin too cold, to properly worry.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What the hell?” Ren’s voice is sharp in his ear.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“When I signal,” Hux orders, low, “shoot the tibanna tank.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The tibanna tank,” Hux repeats. The dock reels under his feet, but he keeps his balance. “Do it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren’s gaze drops to Hux’s hands, now clenched at his sides. damn near </span>
  <em>
    <span>vibrating </span>
  </em>
  <span>with the effort to keep the tremors from showing. “Are you okay?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux looks straight ahead. “Can you hit it from here?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren says nothing. His hand slips inside his jacket.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nahur closes the distance between himself and the Devaronian. “Mind if I get that secure commlink, Bel?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sure, boss.” The Devaronian turns, clearly reaching for a pocket. The motion exposes their back. Strapped across it, a metal canister half as broad as they are catches the lamplight.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren moves in Hux’s periphery. A flicker of shadow.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A blaster bolt screeches. Blue plasma arcs through the air.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Reflex kicks in, and Hux shields his face, turns his back. Light flares behind his eyelids anyway.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The explosion rings out like a thunderclap. The wood shakes underfoot. Something heavy splashes into water. Flame crackles.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux’s pulse rabbits. He can’t hear his breathing. He looks up.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The dock is riven in the middle, splintered wood jutting down into the glowing algae. Smoke hangs heavy over the end of the dock, shrouds the lamps.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Shit,” Hux breathes. His hands are fucked, they’re so fucked.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Beside him, Ren’s pale, still holding the cocked pistol. He looks from Hux to the wreck opposite them. His gaze lands on something.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A bolt whines. Not Ren’s. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux turns in time to see gold plasma streaking toward the air. He’s in its trajectory, there’s no </span>
  <em>
    <span>time--</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A shadow darts in his periphery. Then covers his line of vision. A second shot screams through the air. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then silence, but for the hiss of flames.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux is looking at Ren’s back. A halo of smoke rises from Ren’s right shoulder, with the smell of burnt leather, scorched flesh.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He just--</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He </span>
  </em>
  <span>always--</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>No.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The shot was probably wild anyway, Nahur’s sights blurred by smoke, hands unsteady. Ren’s so fucking dramatic.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He turns over his shoulder before Hux can say so. A fresh rent cuts through his jacket, the skin beneath charred, but probably only grazed. By the shape of the tear, the leather seems to have absorbed most of it. He inhales unsteadily, shallow.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Clear,” he says.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux clears his throat. “Wonderful.” He flexes his fingers and circles around to Ren’s side. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ahead, a single fire burns at the edge of the dock, the rest of the flames already smothered by the humid air. Nahur lies sprawled, unmoving, beside it, claws wrapped loosely around a chrome-plated blaster.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A breeze stirs the fog, blows the smoke toward the city. It’s rank, off the swamp, but it’s cool. It’s movement.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux inhales. Exhales. “Fuck.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fuck,” Ren echoes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>With that, Hux steps forward, treading carefully on what could be unstable boards. Only one narrow beam remains connected to the other side of the dock; the rest trail, blackened, into the water.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux splays his hands at his sides for balance, crossing it. Ren follows behind him, steps heavy in the quiet.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In the water below, patches of algae are dark, apparently damaged by smoke or debris. Most of it, though, still glows turquoise, illuminating the dark outlines of what must be limbs, weapons, armor. The twisted remains of the tibanna tank gleam faintly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux forces his eyes ahead. The air reeks downwind, and he covers his nose with his sleeve as soon as he sets foot on solid ground. From here, the city lights glimmer white and orange. It’s dark past the yellow lamps ahead.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren is close behind him off the dock. Without a word, he steps in front to navigate back to the spaceport.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux follows.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It’s impossible to relax until the shuttle hits hyperspace. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Fortunately, Hux’s hands steadied enough on the walk back to the spaceport--silent and brisk, but not so brisk as to resemble flight from a crime scene or something--that he can grip the steering yoke and punch coords into the navicomp. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The 690 breaks atmo in an unnerving orange halo, its motivator chugging with the strain against gravity, with the stiffness, perhaps, of having sat grounded in heavy humidity for almost two day cycles. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The flareup fades, and space opens dark and limitless out the viewport. Hux lets the shuttle cruise at sublight for just a few seconds. The engine levels out to a low purr while he programs the hyperdrive for Mogoshyn, where he intended to go even if Ren succeeded on Bosthirda. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn’t ask for Ren’s permission. Nothing that happened on that world changes their need to leave it, to stock up on fuel and supplies, to determine a new heading.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren, at any rate, offers no resistance. He doesn’t particularly look like he wants to be consulted. He’s been all but taciturn since the dock, which Hux knows better than to mind. He followed Hux wordlessly into the cockpit, belted himself into the copilot’s seat, and has looked nowhere since then but at the stars straight ahead. In Hux’s periphery, his fingers loosely grip the armrest.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux isn’t about to announce Mogoshyn and start the same fight they had on the way to the temple. He confirms the hyperspace route, then punches the shuttle into lightspeed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s the same familiar stomach swoop, the same judder underfoot as the hyperdrive turns over. The stars streak to parallel white lines around the viewport, then smear to blue watercolor, writhing around the transparisteel.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux balances the yoke, then activates autopilot. </span>
  <em>
    <span>ETA--</span>
  </em>
  <span>states the navicomp readout--</span>
  <em>
    <span>2 hours, 43 minutes.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Just fine. Long enough to establish a plan of action, rest slightly, but more importantly, to get the swamp residue scrubbed off of his legs, his clothes makeshift-cleaned in the sonic. With the immediate danger averted, he can feel it prominently, like a scab that needs to be picked, crawling up his calves. And his boots got wet again crossing the dock onto dry land.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There is nothing that sounds better right now than a hot fucking sonic and clothes that don’t smell vaguely of bioluminescent algae.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s still staring out the viewport as if mesmerized by the white point at the center of the hyperspace tunnel. And he’s sitting there with an open wound.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux inhales. “Let me see your shoulder.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s fine.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Actual verbalization. Brilliant. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux ignores it. “There’s a medkit in the ‘fresher.” He stands, circles to the back of the pilot’s seat. “Get up.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren does, at least.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux brushes ahead of him into the short passage connecting the cockpit to the passenger hold. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sit down,” he says, and gestures to the pleather couch built into the paneling. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I can take care of it,” Ren replies, a defensive edge mounting. He nods toward the ‘fresher.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ll just go in there and use the medkit.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And I’m certain that will be a very tidy job,” Hux returns, then adds before Ren can snark back, “Sit down, and make sure I can get to the burn.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He heads into the ‘fresher, which remains in desperate need of a deep cleaning. </span>
  <em>
    <span>(Don’t think about it right now.) </span>
  </em>
  <span>He pulls the medkit and a facecloth out of the cabinet, washes his hands, dampens the cloth enough to use on the graze.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When he re-emerges, Ren’s seated obediently on the couch, his jacket and shirt piled on the cushion next to him. The shirt rests on top, right shoulder up. The fabric is charred, smudged black, most of the sleeve rent. It’ll need mending, Hux notes for later. Ren doesn’t particularly have a spare.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux puts down the medkit and sits down on Ren’s other side. “All right,” he says, on an exhale.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The wound is shallow but ugly. A line of raw skin, live and vibrant red, crosses the knot that remains of Ren’s bicep, blackened inconsistently at the edges where it began to cauterize. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren’s bare arm somehow looks smaller at this proximity, so thin that the impact should have broken it. His collarbone juts out of the flesh above it, met by a part of the shoulderblade one shouldn’t be able to see. His bent elbow forms an acute angle; skin pulls painfully over it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A flicker of nausea that has nothing to do with the wound washes through Hux. But he masters it. Pushes up his sleeves. Rests his left hand lightly--</span>
  <em>
    <span>delicately</span>
  </em>
  <span>, what with his bones like this--above Ren’s elbow to brace the arm, then presses the damp cloth to the edge of the wound.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren should flinch or hiss at the pressure on the raw skin, but Snoke beat that reflex out of him years ago. He remains the only person Hux has ever met who has a higher pain tolerance than Hux’s own.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux works gently at the sooty residue at the edge for a few moments, trying not to jar it. He almost does, though, when Ren speaks suddenly, abruptly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You aren’t going to say anything.” He’s looking straight ahead still.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s difficult to roll your eyes while cleaning an open blaster shot, but Hux manages it. Ren doesn’t usually ask for credit for this sort of thing, his unsolicited heroics. But he isn’t about to get it upon request.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I didn’t ask you to get shot.” Hux scrubs at a fleck of what looks like charred fabric.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren cuts his eyes at him. “What?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He was going to miss anyway, it looked like,” Hux explains, coolly. “You were under no obligation.” Surely Ren can hear, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>this is not earning you (another) life debt,” </span>
  </em>
  <span>between the words.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Ren’s brows knit, lips part like he’s about to ask another question, a genuinely confused one. “What?” he does repeat, then shakes his head. “No. Not-- That.” He holds Hux’s gaze. “I meant how the fuck you knew I’d have that opening.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A chill rises on Hux’s arms. He swallows, goes back to work. “You didn’t notice what sort of blaster that was?” he asks, as casually disdainful as he can manage.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It was a normal rifle,” Ren retorts. “The Devaronian had clearly custom rigged it to the repeating ammo. And you couldn’t have known they were the one who had the secure comm.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux encroaches into the center of the wound, the live, tender skin. “I had to make my best guess.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Right,” Ren scoffs. His eyes dart between Hux’s face and the wound. “Are your hands even straightened out to be doing this?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What do you </span>
  <em>
    <span>think</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Hux bites back. “I got the ship to hyperspace.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I mean--” Ren looks down. “--when you usually fly like your hands are fucked…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oh, he’s hilarious. He’s just so </span>
  <em>
    <span>fucking</span>
  </em>
  <span> hilarious.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux lifts the cloth. “I’m happy to just let this rot.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I told you I can take care of it by myself.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux sighs. “This is faster.” He presses the cloth back down, harder. Ren still doesn’t so much as tense. Hux traces the top edge of the wound. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I didn’t see bacta in the kit when I inventoried it,” he points out, changing the subject before Ren can escalate it. “This is going to scar.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Smooth. That was a really subtle transition.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren leaves Hux a beat, and it’s all Hux can do not to rise to it. Hux waits him out, finishes the wound, and raises the cloth.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Not even strips?” Ren asks, after a moment, apparently defeated for now. </span>
  <em>
    <span>(Success.)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux sets down the cloth and pops open the medkit. “You think the owner of this sophisticated vessel could afford bacta.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren huffs something like a laugh, but says nothing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux lifts a tube of salve from the medpac and uncaps it. “Well, this is some of your damage restored.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They applied bacta to his lightsaber wounds after Starkiller, of course, but too late to stop the scarring. His skin twisted back together in faultlines and craters. They’re gone now, of course, replaced by the crevices of hunger.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Rather get it this way,” Ren returns, drily.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux squeezes a cool line of antiseptic onto his fingertip, and he shouldn’t say it. Shouldn’t ask again, now. But it isn’t like he can help himself. “You still haven’t told me what happened to the originals.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren turns his head, holding eye contact before Hux can bend over his shoulder. “You tell me what happened on that dock. And at the temple.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A cold finger traces Hux’s spine. He stiffens his jaw and ignores Ren entirely, smearing translucent gel across the top of the wound. “Same classified incident as the hand, I take it,” he observes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The wiry knoll of muscle tightens almost imperceptibly—probably at the temperature, between the salve and Hux’s cold hands. Gooseflesh already covers Ren’s arms, with the exposure.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Different incident.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Very well.” Hux drops his hand, squeezes out some more salve. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren gnaws his lip, looks from his boots to Hux’s face to his own lap. He inhales.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It was at a cantina,” he tells his own knees. “After--everything. Some drunk bastard says I took his seat. He pulled a blaster. I--tried to block the shot. With the Force. So that--” He sort of coughs. “--didn’t go as planned.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux tries to keep a straight face. He really does. “I should say not.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t laugh,” Ren says, but the note straining his voice suggests he’s about to start.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux purses his lips against it, looking down to extract a gauze pad from the medkit. “I’m not.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren conceals it as poorly as Hux does. “I really don’t like you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So I hear.” Hux presses the gauze to the wound, then secures it with an adhesive strip. He applies two more pads the same way, white squares striped with grayish adhesive. He smooths down the edges of the last strip with his thumb. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“All right,” he pronounces, usefully. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s it?” Ren replies, which is somehow even more inane. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux gestures from the medkit next to him to the stack of Ren’s clothes on the other side, the fresh char-holes in the right shoulders. “There’s thread in this kit. Shall I mend those?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren shakes his head. “I’ve got it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux raises his eyebrows, but offers no resistance. The thing is, he would say the same, in Ren’s position. Even painstaking work is better than </span>
  <em>
    <span>dependence</span>
  </em>
  <span>. (And Hux can always intervene if it’s really going nowhere.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Very well,” he says.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He extracts the needle and medical twine from the larger box and hands them to Ren. Luckily it’s pre-threaded. Ren sets it on his lap and grabs his shirt, which he presses between his knees, blackened tear facing up. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thanks,” he says, belatedly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux doesn’t acknowledge that, stands instead. “I’m going to shower.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I figured.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux crosses the cabin to his duffel beside the bunk, digs out what spare clothes and personal products he has. Not that there’s much to get. He’s about to head toward the ‘fresher when Ren’s voice stops him in place.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hux.” The single syllable holds the same kind of natural command that, seven years ago, made legions of stormtroopers trained to fight with their teeth listen to a Jedi dropout six months out of the Core.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux hates the way he turns toward him. As if at attention. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Yes</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re acting like you’re sick.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux bites back the childish urge to retort that Ren looks like a reanimated corpse, so perhaps we shouldn’t judge by appearances.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m well,” he says instead, terse.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren gnaws his lip for a second, then looks back at his torn jacket. “Okay.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Just as well. If he’s not going to push it, Hux isn’t going to presume what he’s getting at--some sort of softer approach, still seeking an explanation Hux doesn’t have for the--  Not a </span>
  <em>
    <span>vision. </span>
  </em>
  <span>The flicker of. Of awareness. The vivid tactical sim his mind must have generated on the dock. (And at the temple, and--)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He almost turns toward the ‘fresher, almost doesn’t give Ren a second look. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But movement crosses his periphery, and he looks back up on reflex. Ren’s rubbing his right arm with his left hand. He doesn’t have a change of shirt, and he’s bent into himself on the couch, spine jutting out of his back. And his arm was covered in gooseflesh.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Damn him.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux reaches back into the duffel for his sweater, the one he usually sleeps in, with the unraveling cuffs, and tosses it toward the couch. (There’s no question now as to whether his size will fit Ren.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren’s reflexes are fine, despite everything. He catches it in mid-air. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Until yours are clean and intact,” Hux explains, before he can ask.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren dips his head. “Thanks,” he repeats.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, it’s cold in here.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Ren’s finished sewing the shirt by the time Hux gets out of the ‘fresher, calves scrubbed clean, clothes washed under the sonic’s highest-pressure setting. He’s something like human again, or at least relieved of the compulsion to scrape the skin off of his legs. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He tells Ren he’s done if Ren wants a turn. He apparently does—grabs his mended but filthy shirt and gets up.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As soon as the sonic kicks on, Hux relaxes, or at least some tension between his shoulders unspools, and whatever willpower has been holding him upright saps from his body. His gaze drifts to the empty couch. Wrinkled brown pleather fills his line of vision. The hyperdrive hums low.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His eyes sting with dryness, and his limbs feel too heavy, and it wouldn’t hurt to sleep for a while. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Except it would, idiot.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>(Do you really want to dream, now?)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Shit,” he breathes. He curls and uncurls his fingers at his side, digs his nail into his palm until it stings. The pain revives him, somewhat.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>All right.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>All </span>
  <em>
    <span>right.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He can’t think about--that, and he can’t sleep either, and anyway, just an hour of sleep will make him more miserable when he wakes up than he is now. (If he could even </span>
  <em>
    <span>get</span>
  </em>
  <span> to sleep.) </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>To keep himself from collapsing onto the couch, he wanders back into the cockpit. He checks the controls (all copacetic) and examines the navicomp ETA (still two hours to go). He wanders back into the hold. Reclaims his blaster from the tattered depths of Ren’s jacket, then replaces it with the needle.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>How he’s going to get even medical-grade thread through that leather is truly baffling.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But whatever. Not Hux’s problem.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He deposits Ren’s knife and tucks the pistol safely back into his waistband. Now that his hands are recovered, he’s the logical one to carry it. (Never mind that it’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>his.</span>
  </em>
  <span>) </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>If he’s calculated correctly about Mogoshyn, they’re unlikely to need it there. Fuel and supplies should be cheap, and if he and Ren keep their heads down, there shouldn’t be trouble with recognition.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Wherever comes next, though, might be an entirely different equation. Not that he knows where that </span>
  <em>
    <span>is. </span>
  </em>
  <span>He ignores a cold frisson of anxiety.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren had better be more talkative when he gets out. And had </span>
  <em>
    <span>definitely </span>
  </em>
  <span>better not plan on power napping. He owes Hux several answers too complicated to get into with swamp scum still stuck on your skin.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>To preempt both of their falling asleep, Hux crosses over to the kitchenette counter and puts on a pot of caf. (He only has two tea bags in his duffel, so it’s better to save them for an emergency, for the time being.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The former shuttle owner’s looks like cheap shit, some off-brand, most of the label in a script he can’t read. Within seconds of starting the caf maker, though the aroma fills the passenger cabin: rich, just bitter enough. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He isn’t physically hungry, but he’s mentally aware he needs fuel, and the vanilla ration bars in the cupboard sound more appetizing than nauseating. He eats one leaning against the kitchenette counter while the caf brews.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A part of him, though, expects to choke on every bite. At some point, the panic is going to set in, and he’s going to have to fold over the bar’s wrapper and offer Ren the rest, nerves suddenly shot.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren may not mind--in fact, Ren definitely finds it normal--but for Hux it’s...</span>
  <em>
    <span>troubling</span>
  </em>
  <span>, in the slow, sick sense that a supernova is troubling a lightyear away. There’s energy still traveling for now, but you know you’re living by the light of a dead star. Someday soon, you’ll wake up in the dark.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Hux’s hands are tied. He has no notion of--no capacity to </span>
  <em>
    <span>decide</span>
  </em>
  <span>--where Ren’s next steps should lead. Of what alternative the Force prefers to the temple on Bosthirda, that will bring his powers back.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And that </span>
  <em>
    <span>is </span>
  </em>
  <span>the objective: restoring Ren’s abilities.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Unfortunately, they’re almost more necessary than ever now, when a metaphysical advantage is the only thing that’s going to buffer the risk of recognition. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It would be literally idiotic to land on a previously occupied world like Serenno, or even ask around about the Order or the fleet on a world like Mogoshyn, before Ren can conveniently wipe the mind of anyone who looks at either of them twice. Before he can sense suspicion--being </span>
  <em>
    <span>known</span>
  </em>
  <span>--in the middle of a packed street, a smoke-clogged cantina.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And given that Ren is the resident expert on his own religion, the next heading has to come from him. (Which is really no cause for optimism.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>(But is any of this?)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s exactly what eroded the Order: Hux having to helplessly follow Ren from world to world, while Ren seeks some nebulous higher correlation, stronger uplink to his Force. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It would be ridiculous, laughable. Grand Admiral Sloane would kill him: the same toxic, corrosive, </span>
  <em>
    <span>stupid </span>
  </em>
  <span>mistake twice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The convenient irony, though, is that this time, neither he nor Ren has anything left to lose. </span>
  <span>On survival instinct, Hux stomachs the rest of the bar, but just barely.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After a few minutes, the sonic squeaks off, then on again louder, then back off entirely.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>While Hux awaits Ren’s sagacious judgment, he pours a mug of caf for himself and one for Ren. He sets Ren’s on the table mounted in front of the couch with two ration bars, which he desperately needs. </span>
  <span>Hux takes his own caf to a low chair across from it, crosses his legs, and takes a sip that scalds his tongue.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren emerges shortly, barefoot, mended shirt sporting a jagged line of loose stitches across the shoulder. His boots are in one hand, the sweater in the other. He sets down the boots by the couch, but proffers the sweater to Hux like it’s a carcass he wants Hux to cook. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux points wordlessly to the duffel. Ren deposits the sweater, then seems to sweep the room, assessing. His gaze lands on the caf and bars on the table</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t we need to attempt sleep?” he asks, but his mouth quirks, and he’s heading toward the couch.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Since when?” Hux returns.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren snorts. “Fair.” He sits down and immediately opens a bar, cellophane crackling. “We’re getting real food on Mogoshyn,” he says, around the first bite.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fully concur.” Hux allows himself half a smile, starts ticking off with his free hand. “Real food, fuel, I need hair dye… Do you…?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No dye,” Ren says, like he’s trying not to laugh.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Anything else immediate?” Hux asks, indulgently.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How immediate?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“To last between Mogoshyn and wherever’s next.” Hux risks a sip of the caf; fortunately it’s cooled enough to drink now. “Which we also need to discuss.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren crumples his empty wrapper. “I know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He fails to elaborate.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Since things did not go as you anticipated in that temple,” Hux prods, “I was generously hoping you had an alternative in mind.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren picks up his caf, blows on it. Takes far too long watching the steam diffuse and regather. “You’re still in favor of restoring my connection to the Force before anything else.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It isn’t a question, but Ren means it that way.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I suppose.” Hux switches his mug to the opposite hand. “It’ll make collecting information on the fleet far easier.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay,” Ren replies, something hollow, guarded, in his tone. “Okay, good.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I did agree to that from the start.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux takes a drag of caf long enough to give him time to continue. Naturally, he doesn’t. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“However, these are</span>
  <em>
    <span> your </span>
  </em>
  <span>abilities we’re discussing,” he prods. “I don’t know how to restore them.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren takes a sip of the caf, grimaces slightly. Of course he does.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“There’s no sweetener on board,” Hux sidebars. “I checked.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s fine.” Ren blows on the mug again, then seems to force down another swallow. “Look, I don’t--” He starts again. Non sequitur, of course. “I don’t know what happened in the temple.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Neither do I.” It falls out of Hux’s mouth before he can stop it, but he amends it just as quickly: “Nothing happened.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Nothing happened, or you don’t know?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux tightens his grip on the mug. “Nothing happened.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren’s exhale is somehow both weary and dismissive. It would be insulting if it didn’t mean he’s changing the topic. “Nothing happened with me, either,” he says, more flatly than Kylo Ren should be capable of. “For real. I don’t know why.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Well, that’s very helpful.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux swings his foot. “Do you have a </span>
  <em>
    <span>guess</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I agree we tried the wrong place,” Ren replies, guarded. He studies his black caf.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux refuses to gratify the cageyness with further questions. “‘We,’” he scoffs instead.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I,” Ren actually concedes, though he sounds like Hux beat it out of him or something. For a second, he taps his mug. “You’re going to hate this,” he says, finally.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I doubt I would hate anything that would help, at this point,” Hux replies, like an adult.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mustafar.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux damn near drops the caf. “Are you fucking with me?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mustafar was-- </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was where it all collapsed. The Order. It had been crumbling for a year, but Mustafar was. The groundquake that rocked the splintered columns, cracked the sinking foundation. Brought the house down.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It makes sense,” Ren retorts, an edge rising in his voice. Under any other circumstances, it would be a better sign than the hollowness. “I need to go back.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Because it turned out so well the first time?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Look,” Ren replies, holding Hux’s gaze with an intensity that fades within seconds. “The last time we were there, I was told my path led through Mustafar to...who I’m supposed to </span>
  <em>
    <span>be</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” He aspirates uncomfortably on the final syllable. “I thought it was the thing I learned about on Mustafar, then I thought it meant another thing, but that was wrong too. So maybe it’s something else on Mustafar.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux drums his knee expectantly. Finally, more out of Ren than monosyllables, and it’s…that.  “I’m going to require precise language,” he says.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren purses his lips for a second, eyes darting like he’s gleaning the scratched tabletop for verbiage. “A...person who I spoke to when we were there last year,” he starts, finally, carefully.  “They told me my path led through Mustafar. But then they gave me this artifact that set me on a different path. Literally.” He gives a dry little scoff. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I thought that was it. But then--later--I thought they meant I was supposed to be someone else. A person I was before. Then that didn’t work out. So,” he tells his caf, “maybe the path isn’t over.”</span>
</p>
<p><span>Hux only listens all the way through because the bullshit is too fucking hilarious</span> <span>to interrupt. Once Ren’s finished, he pops his lips. “Meaning this would be the same individual that sent you to Exegol?”</span></p>
<p>
  <span>“I mean, I couldn’t tell if they </span>
  <em>
    <span>approved</span>
  </em>
  <span> of my going--”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So they’re truly the alpha-standard for advice.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren sighs. He’s quiet for a moment, then takes a drag of caf like he’s exhausted. “Can’t you trust me?” he says, at last,</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Just now in the shower, Hux cleaned flecks of swamp mud out of the rough edges of the scar on his thigh. His mug rests directly above it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” he says.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You aren’t inspiring much confidence right now, either,” Ren returns, stiffening.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Under any other circumstances, Hux would already be laughing. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s ridiculous. It’s classic. It’s predictable and inevitable. They reach their truce, shake hands on the mission, then within--if not an hour, a day; if not a day, a week--have regressed into some former version of themselves. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Now, Ren’s who he was three cycles after Starkiller: bloodshot and reckless and freshly scarred. Looking at Hux like he’s a thermal detonator with the universe’s longest timer. Ren didn’t see when it started running, and he has no idea how soon he’s going to get blown to pieces.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That look was new, then. It’s grown standard since.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux traces his thumb beside the mug’s handle; the ceramic’s still warm enough to sting his skin. He’s got half a cup of caf in his system, but he’s so fucking exhausted. He rubs his face with his free hand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But we can agree we want the same thing,” he offers, the same old proposal, like an ineffective propaganda piece glitching on loop.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren tips his head back, scoffs. “We always have. Overall.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And so much good it’s done us?” Hux supplies, drily.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A grim smile teases the corner of Ren’s mouth. “We should really get credit for trying, at this point.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Is there a tally out there somewhere?” Hux matches his tone, gestures vaguely with his free hand. “Is that how it works?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Theoretically,” Ren returns.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And practically?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren’s gaze drops, but the irony in his voice doesn’t entirely gutter. “I’ve never seen </span>
  <em>
    <span>balance</span>
  </em>
  <span> in my life.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux doesn’t ask for the ten-thousandth explanation of what that’s supposed to mean. Redirects entirely. “So I don’t owe you </span>
  <em>
    <span>for--this</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” He flicks his hand toward his own right shoulder, meaning the place where Ren’s skin is broken under layers of gauze and antibiotic.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You absolutely owe me for that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hux takes a sip of caf. Considers. Not compensation, not properly—they’re worlds past that after seven years at war together. You cover each other (when you aren’t at each other’s throats, but sometimes when you are). It’s called unit cohesion.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But the trouble is, Ren did just cover him, and there’s no war anymore. (Not yet, anyway.) Ren just covered him, and he’s asking for one thing. Bare minimum reciprocation of—if not trust, at least credence.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Will you accept Mustafar as compensation?” he asks, lightly, and Ren knows perfectly well that’s as close as he’ll get to a concession.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nonetheless, his  mouth quirks. “Yes, I will.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Settled, then.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ren dips his chin like the conversation’s over, then picks up the second ration bar and unwraps it with a prominent crackle. He leans back against the upholstery, but there’s the slightest hesitance in it, favoring the injured shoulder under the crookedly stitched sleeve. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It hurts just watching it, shoots a pang like anxiety through Hux’s ribcage. He thins his lips.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thank you,” he says, quietly. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah.”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Glass</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>You'll probably recognize some references to the events of the <em>Resistance</em> TV series episode ‘Station to Station’ and the <em>Black Spire</em> novel in this chapter  :)</p>
<p>(Canon-typical content warnings in the end notes.)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>(fourteen months ago)</b>
</p>
<p>Six weeks out from Naboo, a decanter of Sullustan gin rests on the conference room table. Hyperspace refracts kaleidoscopic in its textured glass, glitters on the tabletop between Hux and Ren.</p>
<p>From where Hux sits, Ren’s profile is stark against the cyan blur outside the viewport. His glass flashes as he lowers it.</p>
<p>“I’m still concerned that Resistance operatives could breach a secure fuel station that easily,” he says, looking from the dregs of his liquor back to Hux.</p>
<p>So he wants to keep discussing this. The latest desperate swipe of a mortally wounded insurgency, so cornered it’s become desperate.</p>
<p>Hux takes a bracing sip of his own gin. “As I’ve told you,” he replies, “the incursion remains under investigation.”</p>
<p>“I know.” Ren swivels back to face Hux fully. “We could probably stand to expedite the inquiry process. That shouldn’t have happened.”</p>
<p>“It shouldn’t have,” Hux agrees. “Which is why I made it abundantly clear to Pyre that we need the responsible insurgent cell completely neutralized.”</p>
<p>It’s one of the last few Resistance cells worth Hux and Ren’s direct attention--in fact, the faction would have been entirely off Hux’s radar, if not for this cycle’s jarring reminder aboard the captured fuel station <em> Titan.  </em></p>
<p>(The reminder that in war, everything that can go wrong, ultimately will.)</p>
<p>The first task Ren lets Hux leave the ship unsupervised for in months, and of course the final fuel station he visits has been infiltrated by Resistance operatives. Of fucking course.</p>
<p>Just two operatives, and seeking the station’s parts, rather than any real disruption of Order activities. But enough for a warning.</p>
<p>He was shocked when Ren let him go. He mentioned the need to make the rounds at the Order’s commandeered mobile fuel stations a week ago, assuming that Ren would tell him he needed him planetside in the Elochar Sector, and mean <em> forget all about it. </em></p>
<p>Instead, he’d stuck to the implicit terms of their new truce. (The truce that has landed them drinking together most gamma shifts.) </p>
<p>He’d half-shrugged and said, “<em> So go,” </em>as if working sectors away from him for a cycle or two were a normal or obvious option. Hux had been smarter than to question the gesture of trust.</p>
<p>But aside from establishing that Hux won’t organize a coup as soon as they’re more than a few kilometers apart, the whole tour will have been useless if Ren gets so stuck on the incursion that he can’t discuss the inspection’s actual findings.</p>
<p>Ren’s quiet for a moment, at least, and the subject change forms on the tip of Hux’s tongue. But Ren speaks before he can get it out.</p>
<p>“What--bothers me,” he says, swiveling again, as if to avoid eye contact, “is that it happened while you were there.”</p>
<p>“We’ve seen no intel suggesting that the Resistance has access to your or my private schedule.” Hux inhales. He needs more fucking gin. “Unless contraindications arise, it appears the timing was mere coincidence.”</p>
<p>(Never mind that Ren believes in no such thing.)</p>
<p>“I would have come,” he says, softly, non sequitur. “There was this window where it had been reported there was live fire exchanged, but your status update hadn’t arrived yet. I almost jumped in a TIE.” He tacks a sheepish sort of scoff onto the end of it.</p>
<p>“I can handle a bit of plasma.” Hux returns the little scoff. “Occupational hazard.”</p>
<p>Ren doesn’t crack a smile. “I shouldn’t have sent you. I didn’t know.”</p>
<p>“You couldn’t have known,” Hux reminds him. Tries again: “But fortunately I am a highly trained military professional.”</p>
<p>(That does it.)</p>
<p>“Really?” Ren’s mouth quirks, and he addresses Hux, rather than his gin. “I had no idea.”</p>
<p>“I can always send you my personnel file, if you need your memory refreshed. Or need some absorbing reading material.”</p>
<p>“That would be really helpful,” Ren says. “Since you’re so modest. And never mention your accomplishments.”</p>
<p>Hux points his glass vaguely in Ren’s direction. “Fuck off.”</p>
<p>“You don’t command me.”</p>
<p>Two months ago, those would have been fighting words. Now, though, Ren’s eyes are bright, and his excuse for a smile tugs at the corner of his lips.</p>
<p>Hux returns that, too, but attempts to sober. (As much as possible with two fingers of strong Sullustan liquor in his system.) To redirect. “I hope this...<em> incident </em>won’t affect my eligibility for future away assignments.”</p>
<p>“No,” Ren says, pivoting in a heartbeat, like he does, from levity to grave, startling earnestness. “Nothing like that. The Resistance is the problem, not you.”</p>
<p>Hux snorts, against his better judgment. “High praise.”</p>
<p>“I’ll put it in your performance write-up.”</p>
<p>“That, I cannot wait to read.”</p>
<p>Ren’s mouth turns up at the corners as he lifts his glass, swallows. He stopped wincing at the burn of the alcohol a few weeks ago, finally used to it again.</p>
<p>It’s less a new thing, these gamma shifts, than a resurrected one, commenced in the weeks after Naboo over a bottle of dry white wine gifted by the Carrendian queen. (It would have gone to waste otherwise.)</p>
<p>Since then, it’s evolved into whatever imbibables they can collect from other dignitaries, supplemented when necessary by Hux’s backstock of Sullustan: Have a glass, have two. Talk a bit. Read reports in the same room. The quietest part of most of their day-cycles.</p>
<p>Hux made a few attempts, in the immediate wake of Naboo, to inquire about Ren’s voices, visions, and overall state of sanity, but he responded with neutral monosyllables, and it was so much easier not to press. No episodes have recurred, at any rate. Not that Hux is aware of. (Not that have impacted operations.)</p>
<p>And it doesn’t hurt that the Order’s winning the war without any of it.</p>
<p>Ren sets down his empty glass, extends his hand, and the decanter slides toward it. Without touching it, he gestures another finger of periwinkle liquid into the glass.</p>
<p>“I will also be including bribery of a senior Order official with illicit substances in that write-up,” he says, drily, as it pours.</p>
<p>“And I will be submitting an anonymous tip to the Inspector General that the Supreme Leader accepts bribes,” Hux returns.</p>
<p>The bottle settles on the tabletop with a click.</p>
<p>Ren gives a deadpan sort of half-shrug. “I can take the Inspector General.”</p>
<p>“I’m certain the Inspector General is well aware.”</p>
<p>“Occupational hazard.”</p>
<p>Hux laughs, and the decanter slides across the table with a flick of Ren’s wrist. It should aggravate Hux, all of it: the ribbing, the quiet, the Force tossing his liquor around the room like  a juggler’s pins. (It may aggravate him again tomorrow.)</p>
<p>But the thing is, the first time Ren was twenty-three the first time he drank Hux’s liquor.</p>
<p>He had come to Hux’s ensuite for a compartmentalized briefing on Starkiller, and Hux’s offer of a drink was honestly meant as a jab.</p>
<p>“<em>What are you having?” </em>Ren said, instead of returning it.</p>
<p>Hux thought he was joking. Assumed he was, but Ren’s gloved hands went unexpectedly to the sides of his mask.</p>
<p>Clasps hissed hydraulically in the silence. He set the helmet--combat-battered already--next to him on the couch, and at first his face looked as fucked-up as Hux had imagined it.</p>
<p>His right eye was blackened, and a violet bruise bloomed along the opposite cheekbone. Some kind of scab bordered his hairline.</p>
<p>In fairness, it took Hux less than a second to process that none of this was permanent scarring. He wasn’t disfigured, wasn’t an alien with natural markings of the sort. These were injuries.</p>
<p>Yet he wore a helmet in combat. The black eye, at least, didn’t happen on the battlefield.</p>
<p><em> “We have bacta for all that, </em>“ Hux said, abruptly. It was a solution.</p>
<p>But Ren shook his head.</p>
<p>The briefing didn’t last long. Ren quietly drained his first glass of whiskey and asked unusually few questions about the material. Hux wasn’t all that engaged, either, brain simultaneously spinning down a track of observations, deductions, suspicions that had nothing to do with the superweapon. The process of elimination.</p>
<p>He didn’t announce that the briefing was over. He gestured vaguely toward his own face.</p>
<p>
  <em> “This was Snoke?” </em>
</p>
<p>Ren said nothing, but his lips trembled, and they were full, extravagant, mismatched to the rest of his face.</p>
<p>It came out in pieces from here: more of his story than Hux had even surmised. The Republic background, the Jedi education, the training with Snoke. Snoke’s “punishments,” which sounded so much like the Commandant’s rages that Hux wanted to scream.<em> (Or curl into himself and hide in the darkest closet he could find, four years old again.) </em></p>
<p>Ren was sobbing pretty quickly, broad shoulders shaking, and Hux kept giving him more whiskey, even though it obviously wasn’t helping, because it was <em> something. </em>Because he wanted it. Because Hux was trained better than to just sit on the couch across from what was at that point one of his soldiers, and stare, and do nothing.</p>
<p><em> “My name.” </em> Ren kept circling back to it. <em> “My name. I chose it. I wanted this.” </em></p>
<p>Eventually, Hux couldn’t help himself. It was out before he could stop it: <em> “What were you called before?” </em></p>
<p>He regretted it before he’d made it through the last syllable. You didn’t ask someone this. It didn’t matter now. </p>
<p>Even worse was that Ren told him.</p>
<p>Hux didn’t get all of it that night. The fine points of Han Solo’s dereliction of parental duty, Leia Organa’s unyielding expectations. Luke Skywalker’s apparent murderous streak. The details came later, scattershot over the next two years.</p>
<p>That night, Ren dissolved too quickly. <em> “I can’t,” </em> he kept choking out. <em> “I can’t do this. I can’t keep going like this. It was supposed to be different. I can’t. I can’t.” </em></p>
<p>And it should have sounded like treason. According to protocol, Hux should have reported it as such.</p>
<p>But Hux had been young once. He knew enough to know this wasn’t political. (That it was far more dangerous.)</p>
<p>He told Ren not to go back to his quarters. To sleep in here. (He wasn’t about to let him be alone.)</p>
<p>Ren curled up on the couch where he was sitting, fully dressed, drapery space-dark against the ice-blue upholstery. He folded his arm under his head like he had practice sleeping without a pillow.</p>
<p>Hux took his lightsaber where he’d laid it on the low table between them and slept on top of it. Ren would have to get through him to do something that couldn’t be undone. He returned it when he woke Ren for alpha shift; as far as he knows, Ren never knew it was gone.</p>
<p>They were arguing on the bridge by 0900, of course--trooper allocations, acceptable collateral damages, tactical improvisation--the usual shit. Like nothing had happened. </p>
<p>But the next gamma shift, Hux found one of Ren’s hairs still clinging to his ‘fresher counter.</p>
<p>Now, the bottle slides another few centimeters across the tabletop, and the offer is clear.</p>
<p>Hux pours another drink.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Two standard cycles after the <em> Titan </em> incident,  the <em> Finalizer </em>hangs over the planet Barunda’s capital city, Nazwa. Crumbling ruins encircle an urban center of modern slums and historic mansions. </p>
<p>Open ocean spreads to the west, glittering out the viewport. The late afternoon sunlight catches on every peak of the deep green water with a glare like a holocam’s flash. From three kilometers up, the ship technically straddles the coastline, but there’s a view of both the choppy waves and the smoke curling from the city’s public plaza, where the fighting has been centralized.</p>
<p>Unamo’s voice pulls Hux back to the bridge. “New orders, sir?”</p>
<p>“Keep cannons on standby, Colonel,” Hux answers Unamo, only slightly belated. The smoke to the east pulls his gaze like a gravity well. “I’ll check in with the Supreme Leader within the hour if there’s no report first. ”</p>
<p>In the daylight, Unamo’s reflection in the viewport is ghostly. She dips her head. “Yes, sir.”</p>
<p>The clashes started there in the plaza last week--between a small Order garrison and a government-backed militant cell. Within less than a cycle of the <em> Finalizer’s </em> --very well, of <em> Ren’s </em>arrival, the insurgents are significantly weakened.</p>
<p>The signals intelligence says so, and so did Ren. Two hours ago, anyway, the last time he commed.</p>
<p>At the bridge’s aftmost viewport, Hux fidgets with his comlink, twirls the cylinder through his fingers, picks at the edges of its switches and buttons without turning them.</p>
<p>The cell is too big, and <em> was </em>too widespread to hope to eliminate them all hand-to-hand, or even by airstrike--at least not without disintegrating half the city.</p>
<p>Hux and Ren’s initial thought was identical: Lure the rebels out with grenades and walkers. Consolidate the fighting into a single tight front. When the majority of their forces are finally clustered at a single set of coordinates--withdraw. And let the <em> Finalizer </em>’s artillery blast the adversary back into the Cosmic Force. (Or at least that was how Ren put it, with one corner of his mouth turned up.)</p>
<p>As soon as Ren gives the all-clear, the gunners have to <em> move. </em>Give the enemy no time to reform their lines, nor to scatter back into sleeper cells.</p>
<p>Win this fight, negotiate with the Barundan king in such a way that he’ll never consider backing Order opponents, then: get the hell out of the Outer Rim for a while.</p>
<p>With the war going this well, High Command--which Ren describes as <em> ‘you and me?’ </em>--needs to balance its presence in the mostly-conquered Core and Inner Rim with the external rings. Impoverished Outer Rim worlds like Barunda won’t believe the Order can assist them if they don’t see it controls the resources of the galaxy’s elite. </p>
<p>But Ren’s drawn to the most remote, extreme combat zones like a mynock to a leaky power cable, always has been. And it’s hard to complain when he’s so efficient.</p>
<p>(He <em> is </em>efficient.)</p>
<p>Plasma flickers kilometers below, pale and silent, given the light and distance. </p>
<p>Hux activates his comlink. </p>
<p>Ren will comm when he’s ready. When he’s out of the line of fire and has attention to spare. </p>
<p>(Hux won’t comm first, not until it’s dire. He knows enough about Ren’s potential distractions not to become one.)</p>
<p>It’s been all too easy, over the past month, since Vendaxa and Naboo and the easy truce that’s followed, to fall back into the routine of commanding from <em> above. </em>To realize his leash now stretches as long as he wants it to. (Half the time, he doesn’t even feel it.)</p>
<p>What’s strange, though, is letting Ren out of <em> his </em>sight. Relying on secure frequency, rather than the spring of Ren’s posture or glint of his eye, to read the situation on the ground. </p>
<p>He used to glean as much, though, out of the mask or the vocoder, sometimes a sector away. </p>
<p>
  <em> How quickly you’ve gotten spoiled. </em>
</p>
<p>Five months since D’Qar, though, and Ren’s face--Ren’s unfiltered voice--still feels like privileged data.</p>
<p>Hux paces the bridge’s observatory level as the sun westers behind the ship. Descends to the tech pit for an impromptu briefing.</p>
<p>The durasteel of his comlink is warm from touch by the time Ren crackles over it.</p>
<p>
  <em> “Hux.” </em>
</p>
<p>Tension he’s hardly noticed unfurls between his shoulder blades. “All clear?”</p>
<p><em> “Just transmitted the coordinates,” </em> Ren returns, with a rare, easy air that suits him. <em> “You can fire at will.” </em></p>
<p>“Copy.”</p>
<p>Within seconds, Nazwa’s public square erupts in green fireballs and black smoke. Orange flames leap up. </p>
<p>“No life forms detected at target coordinates,” reports the scanner on duty.</p>
<p>If there’s any Cosmic Force, it’s swelling.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Two hours later, Hux is walking with Ren outside the King’s palace, where its colonnaded pavilion bleeds into a long strip of beach.</p>
<p>For the first time in years, there are a couple hours to kill.</p>
<p>The surrender negotiations went more quickly than expected, as they tend to these days--not much to discuss with the city still on fire and two-thirds of the galaxy in line--but the <em> Upsilon </em>-class isn't scheduled to depart until 2200 local.</p>
<p>The troopers are still busy--setting up checkpoints in Nazwa’s commercial zones and meal stations in its slums. Politically speaking, Hux and Ren ought to go oversee some of the work.</p>
<p>But by the time they get to that end of town, disrupt the ongoing activities with attention from On High, and kiss a single metaphorical baby, it will be time to head back to the palace's private spaceport.</p>
<p>And it’s quieter here, at any rate. </p>
<p>The sun has begun to dip pink below the horizon, and Barunda's first three moons hang above it like a diadem, whitish in the fading light. As the palace dwindles behind them, the beach opens up wild and barren under high black cliffs.</p>
<p>Sand squelches under Hux’s bare feet--boots left at the pavilion as soon as Ren said “<em> let's walk instead </em>.” </p>
<p>As the tide rolls in, the surf has crept further and deeper up the shoreline. He cuffed his jodhpurs as soon as warm, foamy water so much as touched his skin. Now it laps over them at gentle intervals, washing off sand but leaving brine.</p>
<p>Ren walks between Hux and the brunt of the water, ankle-deep in each new wave. His leggings are rolled up, too, but it can’t be doing much good. He hasn’t said a word since the palace.</p>
<p>A part of Hux's brain is turning itself inside-out to dredge up a topic of conversation, but some other instinct is comfortable with the rush of the ocean, with breathing in the salt-scent that will always reek of <em> home </em>, against all reason.</p>
<p>Besides, Kylo Ren can't be forced to hold a substantial conversation. Either he'll start talking if he wants to talk, or he doesn't want to, and nothing Hux could say to him will elicit more than monosyllables.</p>
<p>The water sighs over their feet, pocking the sand with minute air bubbles no bigger than injection pricks. Out to sea, the sunset ignites the white crests of higher waves.</p>
<p>Hux has no idea how long they’ve been out here, and is halfway to powering on his wrist comm to check, when Ren clears his throat.</p>
<p>“We’re still heading to Onderon from here?” he asks, hardly louder than the hiss of the water.</p>
<p>“Unless another priority has arisen,” Hux returns. </p>
<p>A glance at Ren shows he’s looking ahead--but he turns to meet Hux’s gaze.</p>
<p>“Not that I know of,” he replies, evenly, “since there isn’t much left to do in the Core.”</p>
<p><em> Besides polish our political optics, </em> Hux almost replies, but he knows what Ren always means by <em> “do.”  </em></p>
<p>(He also knows better than to get ahead of himself.)</p>
<p>“Those last few campaigns don’t seem to require reinforcements,” Hux admits, “at least as of alpha shift. They’re predicting surrenders or at least stand-downs within the next standard month.” </p>
<p>That much is statistical fact, not presumption or sheer optimism. </p>
<p>Hux has been running the model twice a morning--not just for the Core, but the entire galaxy--on the chance the favorable forecast is just a glitch. If it is, though, it’s a bug even he can’t work out.</p>
<p>Ren rakes his hair back against a warm breeze. “Another month for the Core,” he says, slowly, as if scanning it for holes. “Then what,” he continues, “another...nine to lock down the remaining systems?”</p>
<p>“It’s a difficult thing to project,” Hux answers, guarded. </p>
<p>“But you’re projecting,” Ren observes. “You always are.”</p>
<p>“Very well.” For some reason, Hux has to tamp down a smile. “In my <em> personal opinion only </em>, sir, nine months seems pessimistic.”</p>
<p>Ren doesn’t miss a beat. “So what do you say, then?”</p>
<p>“Six,” Hux replies, then caveats, “provided we continue at our current rates of surrender and occupation, naturally.”</p>
<p>Ren’s quiet for a moment, while another wave ebbs back to sea. Then he murmurs, “Holy shit,” half to the sand. In the reddish light, it looks like wet cement. </p>
<p>“‘Holy shit?’” Hux echoes, prodding for more.</p>
<p>“Six months,” Ren says, low, as if by way of explanation. “That’s...unbelievable.”</p>
<p>“You can’t believe we’ve nearly won?” Hux lets the corners of his mouth curl. Ren will know the ribbing when he hears it. “I thought you had more faith in the Order than that.”</p>
<p>Ren lets out a huff like a laugh. “I do. You know I do. It's just--” His gaze drifts away from Hux, out to sea. “--so close.”</p>
<p>“It is,” Hux agrees. </p>
<p>He doesn’t point out that this--that <em> victory-- </em>has required no supernatural intervention, no dark power that Ren has yet to master. </p>
<p>Whether Ren realizes this is unclear from his distant gaze and muted tone. And whether he would <em> accept </em>it, if he did, who could say.</p>
<p>“Finally,” is all Hux adds.</p>
<p>“Yeah.” The breeze nearly carries his voice off. </p>
<p>Hux is not going to pursue the monosyllables. The susurration of the waves and the crunch of their steps on the firm, damp sand fills the silence. </p>
<p>On either side of Ren’s profile, two more moons have flickered into the sky. The sun is gone, but its light remains, dyeing the water orange at the horizon. A lone black dorsal fin circles amid it; at this distance, it could almost be a buoy.</p>
<p>Hux is studying it, rather than Ren, when he speaks again, to the wet hems of his leggings.</p>
<p>“What are we going to do without a war,” he says, almost drily.</p>
<p>Hux blinks. Ren knows damn well. Always has, or <em> should </em>, at any rate.</p>
<p>“Rule what we’ve won,” he replies, slowly, and rubs where salt spray has coated his wrist, “yes?”</p>
<p>“Right.” Ren’s gaze flickers toward him, inexplicably <em> amused. </em> “But I mean…” he goes on, with a little scoff, “what are we going to <em> do </em>.”</p>
<p>Hux thins his lips. “What do you mean?”</p>
<p>Ren’s fingers squirm at his side. A wave washes over their feet, draws back out.</p>
<p>“That’s all we’ve been <em> for </em>,” he says, on the ebb. “From the start. I mean, for me, that’s what the Jedi are. Knights.” He enunciates it like it’s somehow ironic. </p>
<p>“So history says,” Hux allows, unsure what he’s getting at when he’s pensive like this. Philosophical.</p>
<p>Hux would rather talk stratagems and budgets and universal education policies.</p>
<p>“I mean,” Ren continues, “I don’t know if I would’ve been on the Republic payroll, but...they train you for war. I got out, lasted six months as a criminal. Then I had to get back in the fight. And you—” He cuts his eyes at Hux. The soft thing in them must be a trick of the dusk. “Fuck, you’ve been in this since before I was born.”</p>
<p>Hux dips his chin, all the assent Ren will get. He knows the Order is all Hux has ever had.</p>
<p>“So have you,” Hux points out, instead.</p>
<p>It’s precarious, of course, to invoke his family. The standards, the expectations, the power threaded through his DNA. </p>
<p>(Never mind <em> “my whole fucking life” </em>and the purported voice on Naboo.)</p>
<p>But he just scoffs drily, shakes his head. “I’ve been the…” He trails off, but lands on, “contested turf.”</p>
<p>He seldom references them directly: the purported Light and the Dark Hux can see. The great metaphysical equation, never balanced, always <em> pulling </em>.</p>
<p>Hux only understands this much: “That puts you at the frontlines,” he says. “You’ve won there, too.”</p>
<p>Ren sighs like he hasn’t spent the past two months doing--<em> being </em>--precisely what the Order needs. (Possible delusions notwithstanding.) “Have I?” he asks.</p>
<p>“I mean, you’ll end the Jedi eventually, of course.”</p>
<p>Ren’s mouth turns in the gray light. “That isn’t what I mean.”</p>
<p>Hux knows.</p>
<p>He does.</p>
<p>It still begs the question, <em> what is? </em>What power could he possibly need that would deliver him something his own skills and armada of Star Destroyers hasn’t? What weapon, what revelation?”</p>
<p>But Hux hasn’t asked since Ren was talking to someone inside his head on Naboo. Hasn’t needed to. That isn’t going to change now, with the ocean warm and the sand cool, with Barunda and two-thirds of the galaxy brought to heel.</p>
<p>He sticks to politics.</p>
<p>“It isn’t as if there’ll be no fighting at all once we’ve won,” Hux says, as if the Force had never been invoked. “I’m certain an insurrection will crop up for you every now and then.”</p>
<p>To Ren’s credit, he rolls with the pivot. “Every few years or so,” he seems to allow.</p>
<p>“Depending on the state of the Resistance.”</p>
<p>Ren’s face shutters at the second reference to--his mother or the Jedi, whichever he’s more afraid of at the moment. But he recovers quickly.</p>
<p>“We’ll eliminate them,” he says, like a promise. “I’ll make sure it’s done in six months.”</p>
<p>On the purpling horizon, the black fin dips beneath the waves for the kill.</p>
<p>“I have no doubt,” Hux says.</p>
<p>He actually means it. </p>
<p>If Ren keeps up his current better mood and laser focus, he’ll destroy them easily--<em> all </em> of them. </p>
<p>(No matter what he’s dreamt about disembodied voices or magic pyramids or his own inadequacy.)</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Ren replies, and there’s something almost vulnerable in his gaze as he looks at Hux, as if the affirmation tapped into some small, surprised side of him, the prince that can still be flattered.</p>
<p>“Of course.” Hux offers him a smile. “But as I suggested, it might take longer to root out the ideology. The Empire fought--”</p>
<p>Ren cuts him off. “We’ll hold out longer than twenty-three years.” He says it like a challenge.</p>
<p>“I should hope so. As you said,” Hux continues, “we’re in this for life.”</p>
<p>Ren’s quiet for a few more steps, apparently absorbed in his head, perhaps contemplating a response to that.</p>
<p>Hux startles, therefore, at movement from him. His arm flies in front of Hux’s chest as if to block his path. </p>
<p>“<em>Don’t </em>,” he says, so firmly Hux’s conditioning kicks in.</p>
<p>Hux stutters to an abrupt halt, balancing himself against inertia. “What?” he hisses, following Ren’s gaze down.</p>
<p>The gelatinous bell of a dead jellyfish glistens in the sand directly in front of him, partially buried, but with stinging tentacles fully exposed.</p>
<p>Ren lowers his hand, then flips his palm and raises it again, combat-quick. The Force pulls the carcass from the sand. It skips into the dark water as if resurrected.</p>
<p>Hux dips his head. “Thank you.”</p>
<p>“‘Course.” In Hux’s periphery, Ren’s hand works at his side. “There’s something else. About that.”</p>
<p>“About ruling after the war?”</p>
<p>“Sort of.”</p>
<p>The water laps over Hux's feet. “All right."</p>
<p>"What I meant was--" Ren drops off briefly. "I meant that the war will be over, and then. It's just going to be us."</p>
<p>"I remain pleased I'll get to keep my job in peacetime.”</p>
<p>Ren snorts, but says nothing for a few steps. "I couldn't do it without you," he replies, finally, with the kind of quiet earnestness Hux can’t quite snark at. "And definitely not for fifty, sixty years. You know I don’t--" He isn't done. He inhales. "--have anyone else."</p>
<p>Hux manages not to inform him that that is a sad fucking statement. “Me neither," he admits, more because it's true than because Ren wants to hear it. </p>
<p>Ren turns toward him, holds his gaze. "So you mean that."</p>
<p>Hux scoffs. "Who the hell do you think I'd have?"</p>
<p>"I don't know." Ren's mouth twitches upward. The breeze teases his hair. "But I just. You're not looking for. That." An unspoken "right?" hangs after it like gravity.</p>
<p>It takes a moment to register what Ren's asking. But if he doesn't know the answer after six years--if he doesn't know the answer when this and the Order have always been the two things they shared--he's beyond help.</p>
<p>And yet.</p>
<p>"No," Hux clarifies, anyway. "I'm not, I-- I believe we're alike in that."</p>
<p>Both corners of Ren's mouth lift, and his shoulders drop, the minutest coil of tension loosed. "Good."</p>
<p>The quiet that follows isn't uncomfortable. </p>
<p>It's the quiet of <em> fifty, sixty years </em>, of the rest of Hux's life stretching before him, better than he could have ever imagined when he was sixteen and starving, and vowed to himself (the highest power he then knew) that one day he would bind the galaxy's every wound. </p>
<p>But until Ren appeared on the <em> Finalizer </em> six years ago, there was no version of reality in which he did it with someone at his side. He isn’t wired for the attraction, the chemical pull that every known culture teaches should accompany that kind of companioship. And no sane being would want him for his sparkling personality.</p>
<p>But Kylo Ren, at least, is anything but sane. And entropy has shaken them to one another’s side, and it’s either successfully <em> make this work, </em> or lose the war trying.</p>
<p>But the thing about it working is.</p>
<p>It <em> is.</em></p>
<p>The back of Ren's hand brushes the back of Hux’s, and there's no request in it. But no <em> "shit, sorry </em>” either, no awkward sidestepping to establish a professional distance. (They’re worlds past professionalism, by now.)</p>
<p>The sand crunches underfoot, and two more pinkish moons hang over the ocean, and of course you touch his hand when you're this close to him, when you're in lockstep and night is falling.</p>
<p>In the years Hux has known Ren, he’s become an inevitability. He’ll be here when the war ends, and when the Order lands on a capital. He’ll be here for the social programs and the education acts and the end of crime.</p>
<p>Never mind that he’ll be on the throne. It’s Hux’s blueprint he’ll be following, his policies and principles. They’re the Order’s, and so is Ren. That’s what matters.</p>
<p>In twenty-three, thirty-three, fifty-three years, they’ll be walking somewhere together (if they still can). They’ll still match each other’s strides.</p>
<p>Ren will be raking back his faded hair, and Hux will have his jodhpurs rolled at the ankle. They’ll be reflecting on the galaxy they’ve transformed, and <em> there will be no one else </em>. (Scientific fact.)</p>
<p>The Calaron sector’s constellations have emerged as the sun went down, scattered in a high indigo band across the sky. </p>
<p>The moons outshine them toward the darkening horizon, and throw pale beams onto the water. They ride the waves to the shoreline, then disappear into the white sand.</p>
<p>The <em> Finalizer, </em>Hux knows, hangs straight overhead, out of sight. </p>
<p>It might be time to be getting back up there--back to <em> work </em>--but it isn’t as if the shuttle can depart without them.</p>
<p>Beside Hux, Ren seems content to keep going, too. Silent, steady, apparently absorbed in his head.</p>
<p>They don’t turn around until they’ve reached the phosphorescent tide pools at the feet of the cliffs. The moons are high, and the crew is definitely waiting for them.</p>
<p>It’s okay.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>“Hux. Wake up.”</p>
<p>A cycle later, the sound of a voice and a soft, warm pressure on Hux’s shoulder startle him awake, into near-blinding light.</p>
<p>Adrenaline arcs through his bloodstream, jolts him fully alert. Combat conditioning pulls him partially upright, elbow propped on his pillow, before his eyes have fully adjusted.</p>
<p>He blinks against the halo of white light over his head, to find Ren in the middle of it. The light radiates from the screen of the datapad in his hand. He’s apparently overridden his way into Hux’s quarters, and is standing at his bedside in the dead of gamma shift.</p>
<p>Though he has to be here over some kind of emergency, the fact that it’s <em> him </em>somewhat calms Hux’s racing pulse. </p>
<p>He rubs his eyes and slurs, “What,” he slurs, mouth so dry his tongue is sticking to his palate. He clears his throat. “Are we under fire?”</p>
<p>Never mind that his comlink would have chimed on its own, in that case, it’s the only viable reason to interrupt his few hours of sleep. </p>
<p>Especially when he’s still making up for the deficit he acquired during the cycle over Barunda. </p>
<p>“No.” Ren sounds like he’s trying to reassure him. “Everything’s fine.”</p>
<p>“Good.” Hux rolls onto his other side, shielding his face with his forearm, before Ren can get an answer out.</p>
<p>Ren of course doesn’t allow it, claps a hand on Hux’s shoulder. Demands attention twenty-four hours a cycle, like he always has. “Listen. I have a new Resistance lead.”</p>
<p>“It can wait until alpha shift,” Hux murmurs back, defiantly groggy, for all he’s wide-awake. “Damn you.”</p>
<p>Ren ignores the curse, doesn’t move his hand. “It’s already past oh four hundred. This could be game-changing.”</p>
<p>“Mm.”</p>
<p>“We got a tip on Starling.”</p>
<p>The codename lights up the remainder of Hux’s foggy synapses, and he rolls back over, props himself up on one elbow.</p>
<p>“Shit, really?” </p>
<p>The Order’s been tracking Organa’s top paramilitary operative since before Starkiller’s completion. <em> Game-changing </em> might be overly dramatic, but Moradi has vanished off intelligence radar over the past months. Any solid tip would be a breakthrough, especially given a dead end on the fuel station <em> Colossus </em>and before it, the bad lead on Vendaxa.</p>
<p>Hux shuffles upright and runs a hand through his hair, blinking a little as the glow of the datapad screen reaches eye level. It lights Ren’s face from below, blanching his skin and casting unnatural shadows across his bone structure.</p>
<p>“Yeah.” Ren taps once at the screen, then looks back up. “Some backwater called Batuu.”</p>
<p>“I’m not familiar.”</p>
<p>“Neither was I,” Ren says, and his voice takes on that manic edge it does. Nothing extreme--no shouting, no joy--just. Excitement. Something bubbling beneath, pushing at the cracks, like it did below the Imperial Palace, months ago, as the holocron blinked between his hands. It isn’t reassuring. </p>
<p>“And then,” he continues, “I dreamed about it.”</p>
<p>All the tension of Hux’s own interest drains from his muscles, slouches his spine. He could have still gotten another hour of sleep. “And here I hoped you woke me up over actual intelligence.” </p>
<p>“I’m getting to that,” Ren snaps. His gaze darts from Hux’s face to the wall behind Hux’s shoulder, then back again. “I dreamed this...massive obsidian column. Or some black stone, I thought it was obsidian. At first I thought it was Mustafar, or some Sith world, but then there was forest around it. This little town spread out underneath. And someone wearing, you know, their firebird. Then I woke up with this word in my head, and I knew it was the name of the planet.”</p>
<p>Hux rubs his face. “What the fuck.”</p>
<p>Ren’s gaze flashes at the tone and--apparently--the weary expression Hux couldn’t care less about concealing. “Would you stop making faces and listen to me?”</p>
<p>It’s going to be a long fifty years.</p>
<p>Hux tips his skull back against the paneling.  “Make this worth my sleep.”</p>
<p>“I will, if you’ll <em> fucking listen.” </em></p>
<p>“I am fucking listening!” Hux takes a steadying breath, then turns so he’s sitting partially on the edge of the bed. He nods that Ren sit beside him. Ren does.</p>
<p>“Get on with it,” Hux prompts, as soon as he’s settled.</p>
<p>Ren bites his lip and closes his eyes for a moment, then taps at his datapad. The screenlight flickers across his face as he opens a different application. “I looked up the word I was hearing.” He tilts the datapad toward Hux in a beckon to sit closer. “And found this in the Imperial archives.” </p>
<p>He’s pulled up a mission report dated nearly forty years ago. A skim of the document pulls keywords <em> Vader, Chiss, Batuu. </em></p>
<p>“So you dreamed about it because Vader deployed there?” Hux scrolls back to the top of the report. “What does that have to do with the Resistance?”</p>
<p>“That’s what I wondered, with the symbol and everything,” Ren replies, then pinches the archive window closed, pulling up the Order’s all-source intelligence database. “So I queried the planet name, and the most recent result--” He pauses, taps on a file whose serial number indicates it was posted three hours ago. “--was this.”</p>
<p>Hux leans close enough to Ren that their shoulders brush, reaches to control the screen again. “<em>Resistance operative Starling (true name: Vi Moradi) reportedly located at Outer Rim trading outpost...” </em>he murmurs aloud, then speedreads through the rest of the report.</p>
<p>It isn’t a terribly detailed account, but the sentient source is designated <em> vetted and reliable </em>by the analytical cell that issued it. There’s enough information about Starling’s movements to suggest her presence on Batuu is more than just a stopover. And that it is, in fact, consistent with her previous subversive activities and likely leadership position.</p>
<p>“It sounds like she’s settling in,” Hux observes, looking back up at Ren.</p>
<p>“My thoughts exactly,” he replies. “And she wasn’t the one wearing the symbol in my dream.”</p>
<p>Hux represses a sigh. Humors him, for the moment. “Then who was?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know.”</p>
<p>
  <em> Of course you don’t. </em>
</p>
<p>“Regardless,” Hux says, indulgently, “if there’s indication that a Resistance presence there might persist, we’ll pivot intel resources to track it immediately.”</p>
<p>“Right!” Ren straightens, as if injected with a frisson of energy. In contrast to the <em> down </em> periods, it’s always a relief to see him enthusiastic about something. Especially something that <em> could </em>be the best Resistance tip the Order’s gotten in four months. “We need to reroute there immediately.”</p>
<p>Hux blinks. Bites back, <em> we absolutely do </em> not <em> . </em>This isn’t the sort of tip worth a diversion from Onderon. Not to mention that the Order needs to be more careful than redirecting the Supreme Leader’s flagship to the first rumor of Resistance leadership activity.</p>
<p>“Supreme Leader--” he starts, a ridge mounting in his tone.</p>
<p>Ren cuts him off with a scoff. He knows exactly what’s coming when Hux uses his title in private. “No.”</p>
<p>“Hear me out,” Hux returns, with a forced smile, “Ren.”</p>
<p>When Ren gives him a beat, he continues, “It would be unwise to reveal our presence and interest while they’re still in--what appears to be--initial phases. Our remote reconnaissance systems are more than capable of tracking space traffic to and from locations on-planet. </p>
<p>“We pivot those toward Batuu, let the Resistance get bolder. They reveal themselves within a month or so, we use those coordinates to conduct a surgical strike on whatever facility they’re using.”</p>
<p>Ren’s shaking his head before Hux has even finished. “We can’t wait a month.”</p>
<p>“Of course we can wait a month.” </p>
<p>If the First Order has one defining organizational trait, it’s patience.</p>
<p>“No.” Ren thins his lips, closes the report. “We lost them on Crait. We’ve been tracking cold leads for damn near six months. We strike hard and fast at the first opportunity. We win.”</p>
<p>“Or we strike so hard that we show our hand, and scare them back onto Anoat or some worse world. It isn’t worth it.”</p>
<p>“It is,” Ren retorts, and holds Hux’s gaze. The white reflection of the screen glitters cold in the depths of his eyes. “This is an order, not a debate.”</p>
<p>“Sir,” Hux repeats, because that’s what Ren likes to hear, “won’t you at least consider--”</p>
<p>“I told you, I can’t.” Ren traces a finger along the edge of the datapad, hard enough to flatten the tip against the metal. “I owe you for Crait.”</p>
<p>Oh, so he’s doing this for <em> Hux. </em>(Because Hux is definitely that gullible.)</p>
<p>“This sort of impulsive decision is exactly what cocked up matters on Crait,” Hux spits back.</p>
<p>“This isn’t impulsive! I just sat here and researched it.”</p>
<p>“Based on a whim and a dream.”</p>
<p>“And a detailed, recent, reliable intelligence report!” Ren’s already pulling up his holomail page. Preparing to send an order.</p>
<p>Shit. </p>
<p>To divert him more than anything else, Hux grabs the edge of the datapad.“That information should not be <em> wasted </em>on immediate gratification.”</p>
<p>“I’m not wasting it.” Ren bats his fingers off, dismissive. “We need to go there. We need to finish this now.”</p>
<p>Hux inhales. “We’re scheduled on Onderon,” he says, flatly. “We only control one quadrant of one city on the entire planet. You’re needed there.”</p>
<p>That works. A bit.</p>
<p>Ren gnaws his lip, apparently considering. “I know,” he sighs. “But this is important.”</p>
<p>“You could leave Onderon at any point if we received additional intel.”</p>
<p>“I could,” Ren admits, then is silent for a moment. “What we really need is eyes on the ground on Batuu. If not mine, perhaps someone else’s. For a start.”</p>
<p>“Did you just propose a compromise?” Hux returns, half ribbing, half genuinely shocked.</p>
<p>Ren tilts his head. “Do you accept?”</p>
<p>Hux thins his lips. A separate recon mission would still pose the risk of Order interest in the planet being exposed too soon, but at least it wouldn’t be as flagrant as a full-scale invasion.</p>
<p>And Ren’s trying.</p>
<p>“I would support deploying a single ground squadron to scout for their facility,” Hux allows.</p>
<p>“Good,” Ren says, clipped and decisive. </p>
<p>“The nearest ship to those astro-coords is...”</p>
<p>“I don’t kn--” Hux starts, sharply, already groping for his own datapad on the neighboring night table.</p>
<p>“The <em> Penumbra,” </em>Ren says, without touching his own screen. He seems to wait for Hux to unlock his own device and pull up the fleet position readouts. “Right?”</p>
<p>Hux inputs the coords, and the feedback is instantaneous. A prickle runs up the back of his neck. “How did you know?” he asks, slowly.</p>
<p>“I knew.”</p>
<p>Hux pops his lips, and doesn’t dignify that with a response. </p>
<p>
  <em> Ask a Force-user a stupid question, get a cryptic answer. </em>
</p>
<p>As long as Ren’s using his powers for concrete military tasks, Hux couldn’t care less about their mechanics.</p>
<p>He pointedly doesn’t chafe his forearms against the chill. Instead, he taps on the ship data for the <em> Penumbra, </em>skimming personnel names. “I’m not certain anyone on this vessel can be as discreet as you require.”</p>
<p>Ren’s brow furrows, and he sets down his own datapad, leaning close over Hux’s shoulder to scan the readouts. “What do you mean?”</p>
<p>“I mean, if we can’t wait for recon results, can we at least take a few cycles to send a competent spec-ops team?”</p>
<p>“I thought you didn’t have incompetent teams,” Ren returns, half-teasing, half-challenging. Fuck him.</p>
<p>“<em>We </em> don’t,” Hux corrects, quickly. It’s been nearly five standard months already; Ren needs to get his fucking head around the plural there. “However, we do have officers on other vessels more competent than...Kath.”</p>
<p>Ren’s gaze lights on the name in question. “Kath has history with Starling. That should adequately motivate him not to lose her again.”</p>
<p>Kath was stationed aboard the <em>Absolution </em>just before Starkiller’s launch, at the time of Moradi’s capture and subsequent escape with the stormtrooper Cardinal. As a lieutenant, he’d been responsible for the ship’s security, and therefore the breakout. According to monitoring footage, she’d <em>literally </em>slipped right past him. </p>
<p>(Hux and Ren had been on the <em> Absolution </em>then, too, of course--but they were both preoccupied with trooper assignments, and scrapping all the more fiercely that close to the search for Skywalker and the Starkiller deadline.) </p>
<p>(Kath had taken the fall.)</p>
<p>“Or it serves to indicate Kath can’t spot a Resistance spy to save his life,” Hux counters.</p>
<p>“He’ll be able to,” Ren insists, and tilts his head to one side, quirking his lip up in the smug smile that Hux always wants to deck off his mouth. “To save his life.”</p>
<p>Hux almost laughs. Not at Ren, or no<em> t just </em> at Ren. Everything about this is preposterous, from sending this particular officer rather than waiting on the telemetry, to the exact way Ren wants to light a fire under Kath. “You want <em> me </em> to threaten one of our soldiers?”</p>
<p>“You can invoke me if you really need to,” Ren returns, still cocky. It must be the Force.</p>
<p>“I’m certain that won’t be necessary,” Hux snorts. “Your reputation does precede you.”</p>
<p>“True--” Ren starts, but is interrupted by a sudden shrill chirp from Hux’s datapad. </p>
<p><em> 0450 - 0450 - 0450 </em>flashes across the screen. Hux’s morning alarm. Damnit.</p>
<p>He silences the grating tone with a flick of his finger, then turns back to Ren. “I’ll comm the Lieutenant personally before morning briefing.” He sounds oddly brittle in his own ears.</p>
<p>“Thank you.”</p>
<p>Ren smiles. It should be enough to disintegrate the uncertainty spooling in the pit of Hux’s stomach, against all logic.</p>
<p>(It should.)</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>At 0600, Hux reports to the gym instead of the bridge.</p>
<p>It’s a sign of better times that he didn’t have to check Ren’s tracker to find him training in the margin before duty hours. (A few months ago, he’d have assumed he’d be falling apart in his quarters.)</p>
<p>Now, it’s a relief to be standing along the rail of a sparring bay, rather than surveying the wreck of his bedroom. </p>
<p>The smell of ozone and the campfire crackle of Ren’s saber hang in the air as he runs through some kind of desert sim, taking down greenish holos of faceless xenos with more flourish than they’re worth.</p>
<p>His arms are bare, and his chest is bare, and his face is bare--but it always is, these days. The saber’s arc flushes his skin. It spits sparks onto the floor.</p>
<p>Hux can’t help but follow his movements, anticipate each next stroke, the patterns in his footwork. </p>
<p>Hux hasn’t watched him train since before Starkiller. </p>
<p>Six years ago, he was shocked to find something besides Snoke’s trials that Ren was rigorously committed to. Something that was his alone, and he took a not-unjustified pride in. It had felt like a sign there was something chafing beneath Snoke and the mask, waiting to be freed.</p>
<p>(Here he is, unleashed.)</p>
<p>Hux remains carefully at parade rest, cataloguing out of habit.</p>
<p>And waiting, of course.</p>
<p>He knows better than to interrupt the Supreme Leader mid-sim, when he’s keyed up on adrenaline and holding a plasma weapon that could explode at the slightest imbalance.</p>
<p>But when a final holo-combatant--this one holding an antique vibroblade--dissolves into pixels, Hux clears his throat. </p>
<p>“Supreme Leader.”</p>
<p>Ren pivots on his heel, retracting the jagged blade with a <em> vwoom </em>and a click. </p>
<p>“Hey,” he calls, and jogs over to the railing. He drags a hand through his hair, then folds both arms on top of the barrier, right hand still clutching the saber. “How’d it go with Kath?”</p>
<p>Ren’s breathing is still a bit shallow. Wisps of hair cling to his temples, but despite his efforts, the lock he pushed back falls lank into his face again.</p>
<p>“He won’t fail,” Hux replies, smoothly. “I ensured your urgency was understood.”</p>
<p>“Good,” Ren says, something distant in his face, but his gaze flickers present again in an instant. “That should keep him inspired.”</p>
<p>Hux purses his lips against a smirk. “That’s the plan, sir.”</p>
<p>“Anything else pressing, General<em> ?” </em> he returns, with the odd teasing emphasis <em> he </em> always puts on the title, at least in private.</p>
<p>“No, Supreme Leader.”</p>
<p>“Good.” Hux expects dismissal, expects Ren to flick his wrist in the air and cue up a new sim. But instead he tilts his head to one side, in what could almost be a beckon. “I’m done, if you want to brief me early.”</p>
<p>Hux raises his eyebrows. “You know I’ve been awake long enough to prepare.”</p>
<p>“Yeah.” Ren almost winces, then promises, “It’ll be worth it when we end this.”</p>
<p>“Of course.”</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>An hour later, Hux folds his ration bar wrapper in half to discard, then bobs his second teabag of the morning.</p>
<p>“If the intel’s accurate,” Ren’s saying, “the Onderonian rebels are using a Clone Wars-era facility somewhere in the rainforest outside Iziz.”</p>
<p>“Which is strange,” Hux replies, leaning forward to adjust the holomap projected on the table between them, “since the monarchy inside has been less than hospitable to us.” He taps the green dot of the Order’s sole planetside base, within the capital’s walls. </p>
<p>The troopers have been cracking down on crime and terrorism as part of Onderon’s three-stage submission plan. Any time they set foot outside Iziz, it’s booby traps and blasterfire.</p>
<p>Ren hmms. “Makes me want to start the fight in the city. Pay a diplomatic visit and let the rebels come to us.”</p>
<p>“You think they will?”</p>
<p>Ren raises his eyebrows. “Have you seen this prop?” taps the side of the readout, pulling up an open-source report on the Onderonian rebel media campaign.</p>
<p>The propaganda isn’t just your standard <em> Down with the Bucketheads; </em> it’s <em> Death to the Planet Killers. </em></p>
<p>Hux sighs. “Am I the bait?”</p>
<p>Ren looks expectantly from Hux to the readout. “I mean…”</p>
<p>Hux covers an incredulous laugh with his hand. “At your service,” he says, mostly recovered, and grabs his tea.</p>
<p>“I appreciate--” Ren starts, but he’s interrupted by a sudden klaxon from beside his caf cup.</p>
<p>The durasteel surface of his comlink flashes blue, and it projects Mitaka’s frequency into the five centimeters above its far end</p>
<p>Ren glances up at Hux, and Hux nods that he answer, mid-sip.</p>
<p>Ren taps for audio only, for the benefit of the unfinished Onderon plans and Hux, who would have to circle the head of the table to get into the holo’s frame. </p>
<p>“Ren,” Ren says into the comm.</p>
<p>“Report,” Hux pitches in, mostly so Mitaka will be aware he’s on the line. Hopefully he didn’t hear the end of his swallow.</p>
<p>“Supreme Leader, General Hux,” Mitaka’s voice crackles through the comm, “we’re receiving reports from the garrison on Fondor. There was a series of explosions in the shipyards at 0650. Resistance operatives are suspected.”</p>
<p>“Mother<em>fucker </em>.” Ren voices Hux’s exact thoughts, knuckles blanching around the comm. “Brief us when we get to the bridge.”</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Within minutes, Hux is at parade rest, drumming his fingers against the back of his hand in the last lift to the bridge.</p>
<p>“It shouldn’t be Fondor.” Ren’s pacing the lift’s two-meter diameter like a caged predator. Gone is the breezy certainty of gamma shift and of the training ring, replaced by the rigid intensity of the mantle of leadership. Ren always wears it heavily. “We made an example of Fondor.”</p>
<p>Hux digs his nails into the meat of his palm.</p>
<p>Of course this wasn’t supposed to happen. This late in the war, the Order isn’t supposed to be <em> backtracking. </em></p>
<p>“Perhaps that’s why Fondor was targeted,” Hux speculates, clipped. “Newscasting the former president’s execution may have incited the populace rather than cowed them. They could have easily gotten central Resistance attention.”</p>
<p>Less than a month after Ren’s ascent, the Order captured the shipbuilding world’s capital after a lopsided skirmish with its former satrap’s security forces. They’d installed one of the president’s business executives as Fondor’s new Magistrate. The president himself had met the business end of Ren’s saber.</p>
<p>Ren turns on his heel mid-step. “Newscasting it was your idea.”</p>
<p>“I know it was.” Hux digs his gloved fingers into the meat of his palm. “I’m admitting to a possible miscalculation.”</p>
<p>“That’s new,” Ren scoffs.</p>
<p>“No, it isn’t,” Hux retorts, ready to cite Jakku and Snoke, both of their misjudgment on Vendaxa, but the lift dings to a stop before he can get it out. </p>
<p>(Just as well.)</p>
<p>The doors iris open into the flurry of emergency status on the bridge.</p>
<p>Mitaka approaches, datapad in hand, and Ren batters him with questions before he can so much as get to the notes he’s assembled. </p>
<p>The casualty figures--and the damages to the Order’s newly acquired vessels--instantly eclipse all thoughts of the distant future, of Onderon, and of Starling.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Content Warnings: Hux recalls in detail bruises Kylo received from Snoke | In the same context, he mentions, without detail, his abuse by his father as a child, namely its occurring at age four | Hux recalls fearing that Kylo would hurt himself in the past, to the extent that he made sure he didn’t have a weapon.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Mirror</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>More <em>Black Spire</em> content referenced in this chapter!</p>
<p>(No extra warnings for this one)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>(fourteen months ago)</b>
</p>
<p>“I want all seven remaining UA double-T’s deployed, Lieutenant,” Hux orders, four sleepless cycles after the Fondor bombing. </p>
<p>He’s spent the interim bouncing between the <em> Finalizer </em>’s bridge and Oridin City’s most secure cloudscraper, volunteered by Fondor’s new ruling family as a headquarters for the counterinsurgency operation the attack proved the need for.</p>
<p>The suicide operative in the shipyards was only the catalyst for further chaos: burning factories, workers’ revolts, street riots. Fondor’s production levels have plummeted from billions of credits daily to exactly <em> zero. </em></p>
<p>The Resistance’s strategy is working spectacularly--at least in terms of <em> starting </em>rebellions. Their propaganda exaggerates purported grievances against the Order, fomenting discontent on occupied worlds. Then, their clandestine agents establish contact with sympathizers, which beget rebel networks, which receive external funding and arms to beget Resistance sleeper cells.</p>
<p>Resistance sleeper cells, of course, beget terrorist operations, strikes, protests, clashes, and eventually war, if allowed to persist.</p>
<p>When the <em> Finalizer </em> arrived earlier this week, Hux had been certain that despite the smoke in the air and armed rebels in the streets, Fondor was in the early part of the <em> clashes </em>stage. Tonight, however, he has to admit it feels like war. </p>
<p>A hundred storeys below the observatory’s transparisteel floor, flames erupt from corporate facilities and government headquarters. The throng of rebels permeates every street, writhing--at least at this distance--like a single dark amoeba, its unified intent nothing but destruction.</p>
<p>On the other side of Hux’s transmission, Mitaka’s holographic form looks up from his datapad. “Is there any further update on the <em> Conqueror’ </em>s projected arrival, sir?” </p>
<p>In an impressive feat of self-restraint, Hux doesn’t rub his temples just <em> thinking </em> about the delayed reinforcements. “The estimated date remains two cycles from now.”</p>
<p>“Yes, sir.” Mitaka dips his head in standard deference. The comm crackles for a silent beat. “Is there anything else, General?”</p>
<p>“No,” Hux says, curtly. “Just have those walkers planetside by morning.”</p>
<p>“Yes, General.”</p>
<p>Hux dismisses him with a nod and powers off the comm. </p>
<p>The only sound left in the observatory is the bubbling of the fountain in its central terrarium, a green patch of ferns, ficuses, fig trees, and tubular purple flowers Hux doesn’t recognize. The room’s roof and walls are also transparisteel--letting in the light of one sun and six moons. A glass-bottom walkway curves wide around the garden, extended out from the rest of the tower by a magnetic technology Hux didn’t let the city’s magistrate finish explaining.</p>
<p>The observatory is not only the city’s--and possibly the entire wasteland planet’s--greenest point, but also its highest and safest point,  complete with ionic shielding of its own. It’s therefore serving as the Order’s ground comms hub, while the rest of the building houses troopers, supplies, and combat gear.</p>
<p>During alpha and beta shifts, a steady stream of officers and analysts cycle in and out of the observatory, reporting trooper movements and manning the makeshift switchboard on the edge of the garden. By night, however, comms ops default to the <em> Finalizer </em>’s skeleton crew, and just one officer is left to man the systems overnight. </p>
<p>Namely Hux, though Ren valiantly took last cycle’s shift. </p>
<p>It wasn’t like Hux had slept a wink on the <em> Finalizer</em>, though. Even from high in the troposphere, the clamor of battle rang in his ears. (But at least he’d gotten a shower in.)</p>
<p>Hux has been using the long wakeful nights to (1) pop stims; (2) chug Tarine tea; and (3) catch up on his normal duties unrelated to the crisis below.</p>
<p>He’d gotten far enough into his inbox before Mitaka commed to find, apropos of nothing, an alpha shift request from Ren to check in on the Batuu recon force. </p>
<p>A possible fledgling Resistance network in the Outer Rim has been low on Hux’s priorities next to outright insurgency on a key world like Fondor. But perhaps Ren supposedly dreamed about the backwater again. Hux commed anyway--twice--before getting hold of Kath. </p>
<p>Kath had little to report, aside from an unimpressive <em> almost </em> when it came to capturing Starling as ordered. Hux reiterated the need to locate both the spy and the base and reminded Kath that he would not be returning to the <em> Penumbra </em>without the prisoner and coords. His troopers would see to that, if necessary.</p>
<p>Then Hux had sent Ren a short writeup of the conversation, which he had failed to acknowledge, despite his tracker pinging safely aboard the <em> Finalizer.  </em></p>
<p>But whatever<em> . </em> It isn’t as if they don’t both have more important concerns, or Hux’s message said anything of particular interest.</p>
<p>Hux scrolls through the rest of his daily reports, walking a slow circuit around the observatory’s perimeter to avoid sitting still. Supply manifests, a water filtration contract, intel tips, a strategic assessment of the Order’s current posture on the Core. </p>
<p>Nothing extraordinary.</p>
<p>Hux isn’t expecting another message with <em> Batuu </em>in the subject line. He stops in place, as a fresh fire breaks out a kilometer below.</p>
<p>The new message is actually from <em> Kath</em>, and arrived during Mitaka’s briefing. Ren is in the <em> T </em> o line (Hux merely carbon copied), and the subject reads <em> Force Artifacts Scan--Batuu. </em></p>
<p>“What the <em> hell </em>?” Hux mutters as he clicks it open, skimming the message to find that troopers had been deployed--damn near half Kath’s squadron--to investigate…an antiquities shop.</p>
<p>Hux almost laughs. (Almost.)</p>
<p>Well.</p>
<p>No wonder Ren was so excited about the Starling tip.</p>
<p>Kath’s brief report notes that the establishment in question had been earmarked by the Empire as a tradepost for all manner of mystical relics, and Kath had seen fit to have it investigated.</p>
<p>Of course, he and his squadron are under Ren’s standing orders regarding Force artifacts, issued even before Coruscant and the holocron and the <em> first </em> dream that rattled him enough to make the <em> Finalizer </em>change course.</p>
<p>But that almost makes it worse.</p>
<p>The shop probably came up in Ren’s initial research. Pair it with the Resistance sighting, and it’s a capital-<em> senth </em> Sign, yes. But also a way to score a magical prize without having to argue with Hux about whether this was an appropriate allocation of resources.</p>
<p>Clever fucking way to keep the peace.</p>
<p>There’s a childish part of Hux that wants to reply to Ren only on the message, start the resource argument--again, really--to assert that he’d seen right through him. Remind him that he always does.</p>
<p>But. </p>
<p>Starling truly does appear to be operating on Batuu, so the deployment is worth it. (Even if patient technical collection against a possible base would still be a less detectable method.)</p>
<p>Moreover, the troopers--for what Ren will consider it worth, anyway--failed to find anything in the antiquities shop worth appropriating for the Supreme Leader’s purposes.</p>
<p>And above all: They’re fighting a war on Fondor. It would be a waste of energy to argue about Batuu.</p>
<p>Hux swipes the message into his archive folder and keeps walking.</p>
<p>He’s hardly taken ten more steps, though, when a soft <em> ding </em>from the lift in the garden calls his attention from the screen. Heavy tread falls on the stepping stone path crisscrossing the green, and Hux turns at the sound of it, as Ren’s dark shape emerges from between two of the trellises.</p>
<p>“Supreme Leader.”</p>
<p>Ren seems to give the observatory a visual sweep before setting foot on the transparisteel. Apparently assessing they’re alone, he crosses the floor and stops short mere centimeters from Hux’s chest.</p>
<p>“Hey.”</p>
<p>Hux powers off his datapad. “What are you doing here?”</p>
<p>“What are <em> you </em>doing here?” Ren moves back almost imperceptibly. “I saw you were still logged as planetside.”</p>
<p>“I’m <em> doing </em>my job,” Hux returns, with more bite than he intends.</p>
<p>In all fairness, he <em> had </em>told Ren he would ‘likely’ have Unamo take this shift. But then he’d realized he wouldn’t sleep any better than he had last night, so what was the point? It would be miserably irresponsible for a senior officer to miss a moment of an evolving situation like this one, anyway.</p>
<p>But before he can offer an excuse, Ren huffs an exhale. “If you’re so bitter about it, I came to…” He trails off abruptly, gaze dropping to fixate on the engulfed bank, the zigzag plasma fire of UA-TTs, but most importantly, the drop. </p>
<p>The color drains from his face, and his teeth worry his lower lip. Heights. There was a trial with Snoke that he once had a panic attack trying to describe.</p>
<p>“You spent all of last night up here.”</p>
<p>A bit of flush returns at that, and at least he looks up. “I stayed on the green part,” he says, defensive.</p>
<p>“If it’s any comfort, the transparisteel is supported by magnets more expensive than half the fleet.” Hux steps to Ren’s side, holds his gaze, then starts walking.</p>
<p>“Not particularly,” Ren replies, but he follows Hux and looks out instead of down, past Hux entirely. </p>
<p>He’s silent, between the apparent discomfort with the glass floor and the sleeplessness that must have brought him back up here when he saw Hux had taken the shift. In insomnia, they’ve always been together.</p>
<p>“Did you see the Batuu comms?” Hux asks, while he has Ren. There may be cause for the antiquities shop argument yet.</p>
<p>But Ren just nods. “Hoped they’d help me sleep.” He gives a dry, ironic little laugh.</p>
<p>“Condolences,” Hux returns, deadpan. After a few more quiet steps, he adds, “Were you even able to doze?” <em> Before you gave up. </em></p>
<p>“A little,” Ren says. “But then I dreamt.”</p>
<p>“Shit.”</p>
<p>“I know.” Ren folds his arms across his chest as if to ward off a chill. “It’s been that way all week.”</p>
<p>“Has it…” Hux gropes for wording, feeling as morbidly ill-equipped for this as always. “...been about Batuu again?”</p>
<p>“Earlier in the week. Not tonight.”</p>
<p>“All right.”</p>
<p>As they round the garden, facing west of the city, a sulphurous mushroom cloud obscures the distant horizon, livid in the moonlight. The dark, spidery fingers of shuttered cloudscrapers stripe it black from this vantage point. Intel states there’s now nothing left of the axidite refinery at those coordinates.</p>
<p>“They’re destroying their own economy,” Ren says, non sequitur, inclining his head toward the pane.</p>
<p>“Destroying the magistrates’ means of controlling them, as they see it,” Hux returns easily, appreciating the change of topic too much to hold out. </p>
<p>Never mind that the abrupt shift feels almost evasive. Hux doesn’t understand Ren’s...<em> condition</em>, but he at least likes to remain apprised of its symptoms.</p>
<p>But Ren for once wants to talk political principles. And there are, in fact, few things Hux loves more than political principles.</p>
<p>“What do they think they’re going to do if they win?” Ren says. “If they set up their new government by obliterating their manufacturing sector, they’ll have nothing to offer us or the rest of the galaxy.”</p>
<p>Hux’s elbow brushes Ren’s. “They think they’re going to scare us off and pave the way for the New, New Republic.”</p>
<p>“Which definitely won’t give them food for nothing in return.”</p>
<p>“I imagine the Resistance agents told them something quite different.” </p>
<p>Underfoot, a UA-TT bolt sears red through a crowd of shadows. It feels so sterile up here, tidy and clean and unreal. Ren’s spent most of the past four cycles down in it, mowing the rabble into submission.</p>
<p>“I sense it’s gotten out of the Resistance’s hands too,” Ren returns, still not looking down. “They would want the ships and resources taken over, not destroyed. That’s why I wanted Fondor in the first place. Knowing they might try to use what’s here.”</p>
<p>Hux knows all of this. Two months ago, Fondor and Mon Cala had been the first of Ren’s decisions that he unconditionally supported: strike at possible Resistance resources, and reinforce the fleet while the Order’s at it. The strategy was above reproach. </p>
<p>For a short, glorious window, Supreme Leader Ren had been fully able to hear over his voices. (Hux hadn’t had to worry about competing.)</p>
<p>“I suppose we’ll see if they pull their funds and weapons,” Hux concedes. “Then we’d simply have to decide whether gaining these resources is worth using up the ones we have.”</p>
<p>Ren hums, and is quiet for a beat too long. “I’m not worried about it.”</p>
<p>“You seem worried.”</p>
<p>“I sense we’ll be able to crush this--” Ren gestures obliquely to the fracas below. “--before it reaches that point.”</p>
<p>Hux nods his assent. The stakes may be different on Fondor, but the Order can boast of nothing if not its counterinsurgency tactics. </p>
<p>But Ren’s confidence sounds--as usual--like it’s based on something besides concrete tactical advantage.</p>
<p>Hux looks down just as his boot covers a small thermal explosion. “You’ve been saying that more often than usual on this mission,” he starts, uncertain. Unfortunately, he can’t afford not to circle back. “That you sense things.”</p>
<p>Ren’s quiet for so long, Hux begins to doubt he plans to answer. When he does, it’s no help.</p>
<p>“It varies,” he says. “It used to always just be a gut feeling--an intuition. But now…”</p>
<p>“You don’t mean your voices,” Hux blurts, more to reassure himself than anything.</p>
<p>Ren’s fingers work at his side. Between their sides. “Not this mission.”</p>
<p>Fantastic.</p>
<p>Hux has never known what to say to this. To any of it. He doesn’t have the words; he doesn’t even have the <em> syntax. </em>And he’s unused to it.</p>
<p>What’s acting upon what: Ren on the Force, the Force on Ren, <em> in </em> Ren, in <em> everything </em>? </p>
<p>Ren’s voices? Who the hell is the object here? </p>
<p>Ren seems active enough, but he didn’t give himself his abilities. </p>
<p>The Living Force, or the fucking Light again? Pick a participle. </p>
<p>A hundred uncertainties, and that’s just under the hypothesis that any of this is real besides the power that can extract accurate intelligence from the skull of most living beings. Can sense an ambush in time to rewrite plans of battle. </p>
<p>(That dragged him across the <em> Finalizer </em>’s deck, that choked him until he saw static--but that also woke Ren before he could shoot him in cold blood.)</p>
<p>Hux doesn’t know enough about any of this to draw the line on sanity. And when he asks, it’s like he’s speaking a different language, fumbling his way to the end of a sentence, so caught up in the structure that he forgets his inflection. Miss a word, throw off a single tense, and you get an irrelevant answer.</p>
<p>But Ren’s fingers are working at his side now, and his gaze distant, and Hux has to try. He takes a direct approach.</p>
<p>“So your voices haven’t been telling you about Fondor?”</p>
<p>Ren shakes his head.</p>
<p>“Have you…..” Hux trails off, recovers poorly: “...been hearing them at all? Lately?”</p>
<p>“Just one,” Ren murmurs.</p>
<p>“Oh.”</p>
<p>You aren’t supposed to be discussing with your commanding officer his nightly hallucinations.</p>
<p>You aren’t supposed to be discussing with your longtime rival the voices in his head. </p>
<p>(These are not supposed to be the same person, and he’s not supposed to be unraveling.)</p>
<p>“Is it, ah--” In the middle distance, fire creeps like a jungle vine up the sides of a cloudscraper. “Is it...a good one? Or…”</p>
<p>“They’re kind of the same.”</p>
<p>“How so?”</p>
<p>Ren huffs a sigh. “Nothing’s ever enough.”</p>
<p>Hux wants to ask <em> how so </em> again, but Ren’s already made one evasive attempt since he arrived, and he’s being less than forthcoming now. </p>
<p>And a simple status update on...<em> this </em> is still easier than wheedling out cryptic explanations.</p>
<p>So Hux asks, “Have you-- seen anything?” and means whatever Ren’s gaze fixes on sometimes, that’s a hundred klicks away.</p>
<p>Ren doesn’t answer. </p>
<p>Not at first, and not after Hux gives him the time it takes to round half the observatory’s perimeter to generate something. It’s worse than a transparent <em> no. </em></p>
<p>Ice trickles down Hux’s spine, but something warm and nameless clenches in his chest. </p>
<p>“Do you want to talk about it?”</p>
<p>“Not really.”</p>
<p>That stings, a little, for all Hux knows talking to him is no use to Ren. </p>
<p>It’s like years ago, when he was trying to talk through the quintessence containment formula. Ren’s questions were so elementary, they distracted him from processing. He didn’t want to define quintessence when he was trying to calculate the interaction of its density with the metal of the reactor.</p>
<p>And Ren doesn’t process verbally, anyway.</p>
<p>Still, he speaks up first, a round later. </p>
<p>“Thank you,” he says. “For asking.” He stops in his tracks, turns to meet Hux’s gaze. “You should try to sleep if you can. Downstairs or on the ship, doesn’t matter. I need you fully--”</p>
<p>“Can’t,” Hux cuts him off, then tries to soften it with deadpan. “I took a stim at twenty-three hundred. I’m past the point of no return.”</p>
<p>“That was four hours ago,” Ren tries to counter. He hasn’t taken one in years. Must have forgotten they buzz you for eight.</p>
<p>“And?” Hux says anyway.</p>
<p>“They aren’t the same as actual rest.”</p>
<p>Hux rolls his eyes at the transparent ceiling. Two of Fondor’s moons shine above, each at their half. The ring of the shipyards glitters in the background, like the arm of a too-close galaxy--dark but for the pinpricks of nightwatch lights.</p>
<p>He’s about to keep walking, when Ren speaks up again. </p>
<p>“Look,” he says, with an abortive glance at his boots and--consequently--the fall from here. “I’m going to meditate.”</p>
<p>Hux raises his eyebrows. “Here?”</p>
<p>It isn’t as if Hux fully understands the practice, but with the way Ren keeps eyeing the transparisteel floor, it seems unlikely he’ll be able to relax.</p>
<p>“It’s good for me,” Ren returns, and doesn’t admit to the fear, much less explain how it could be good for anything.</p>
<p>Hux sighs. “Well, enjoy.”</p>
<p>If Ren’s going to drop down in the middle of the floor and close his eyes, Hux can pace around him perfectly well.</p>
<p>But Ren doesn’t sit. He holds Hux’s gaze with an arresting, calculating intensity. The chatter of the fountain fills the quiet.</p>
<p>Then Ren inclines his head. “Join me,” he doesn’t-quite order.</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“You’re no good to the Order burning yourself out like this.” Ren shrugs as if it were the stats on the latest TIE prototype. “If you’re too strung out to sleep, the most you can do is clear your mind for a while.”</p>
<p>Hux scoffs. “I have gotten very far in life by <em> never </em>clearing my mind for a moment.”</p>
<p>“Then you’re about due.” Ren nods downward without quite looking. “Sit down.”</p>
<p>He’s serious. Somehow, he’s absolutely serious.</p>
<p>But there are a million obstacles that involve neither the stims in Hux’s system nor the obsessive-compulsive circles of his thoughts.</p>
<p>“Are you mocking me?” he asks, anyway.</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>“But you know I can’t--” Hux gestures vaguely at the floor.</p>
<p>Somehow <em> meditate like you do </em> gets across.</p>
<p>“I knew a Force-null who does it,” Ren answers, almost evenly, but then corrects himself: “Did it. It’s still a relaxing practice.”</p>
<p>“I don’t need to relax,” Hux dismisses him, hand straying toward his datapad, “especially not when I’m supposed to be monitoring tactical comms.”</p>
<p>Ren huffs something between amusement and impatience. “It isn’t like you’ll be in a trance. You’ll still be able to hear any alerts that come in. You can’t go as deep into the Force as I can. ” </p>
<p>“Naturally, given that I don’t know how to do it at all,” Hux argues.</p>
<p>“I’ll show you.” It’s tinged with the slightest upswing, the offer and the question at once. It doesn’t dissipate as he adds: “This is an order, General.”</p>
<p>“I can’t.”</p>
<p>He still has a full inbox, and there are tomorrow’s holocalls to plan for, the <em> Conqueror </em>’s tactical gaps to fill.</p>
<p>“Hux.”</p>
<p>And for a moment, his loneliness is transparent. It isn’t sufficient just to have another living being’s presence. He wants to...share this. Even in a practice that Hux understands to be about retreating into the self, he apparently can’t abide his own company any more than Hux can abide <em> quiet. </em></p>
<p>Well.</p>
<p>Hux is up here for at least another four hours, anyway. It won’t take long to show Ren this isn’t something he’s either capable of or interested in doing. (And neither of them has any gin on hand.) Hux takes a few steps inward, toward the garden, then stops.</p>
<p>“Here?” he asks, sounding far more tired in his own ears than he feels.</p>
<p>One corner of Ren’s mouth twitches up, his wretched excuse for a smile. “Sure.”</p>
<p>Hux shrugs off his greatcoat, folds it over his arm before settling onto the cool transparisteel of the floor. He slides the coat off his arm. His blaster and datapad click faintly against it, even through the gaberwool and pockets.</p>
<p>Ren lowers himself far more delicately, splaying his fingertips across the space next to him as he crosses his legs.</p>
<p>A municipal complex burns a kilometer below him, haloing his knee in flames, even as plasma cuts through the surrounding streets. The lotus of his legs cuts off blaster trajectories, obscuring everything but a flickering lattice of arcs and rays in the margin between Hux’s knees and his boots.</p>
<p>Hux has seen him do it unshod in his quarters, but that apparently isn’t a requirement.</p>
<p>“Shall I--” Hux starts, but mirrors his position anyway.</p>
<p>“Good.” </p>
<p>“Why, thank you.”</p>
<p>Ren snorts. “Relax your hands,” he continues, laying his own on top of each of his knees, palm up and fingers open.</p>
<p>Hux has laced his tight above his ankles. His knuckles have yellowed through his skin, but he lays them like Ren’s. If he were standing, the pose would be a helpless shrug.</p>
<p>Ren studies him for a moment. A building burns behind his shoulder, blocks away.</p>
<p>“Look at me,” Ren says, quietly, the lightest emphasis on <em> me</em>, as if he knows or guesses where Hux’s attention has gone. “Focus.”</p>
<p>“I thought I was supposed to close my eyes,” Hux ventures.</p>
<p>“Exactly.” Ren shuts his own. “Close them.”</p>
<p>Hux does. The glare of plasma and fire lingers behind his lids for a moment, infrared, then white, before it dissolves.</p>
<p>“Now what?” he asks the darkness.</p>
<p>“Clear your head,” comes Ren’s voice, disembodied. “Don’t think of anything at all.”</p>
<p>“I can’t just stop <em> thinking </em>.”</p>
<p>“Try.”</p>
<p>“Very well.”</p>
<p><em> Don’t think. Just </em> don’t think <em> . Clear your mind out, let it just go black. </em></p>
<p>But there’s the <em> Conqueror</em>, not to mention the battle below, and if Hux opened his eyes, he’d be watching it: cannonfire and the seething mass of rebellion. The conflagrations creeping up the skyline.</p>
<p><em> Damnit, don’t </em> think <em> . </em></p>
<p>(Fine, fine.)</p>
<p>The darkness under his eyelids feels too heavy, oppressive. It’s all he can do to keep them closed. </p>
<p>
  <em> You’re thinking again, stop thinking-- </em>
</p>
<p>An indefinite moment passes in the blackness, thoughts looping and tangling, cut short or drawn out into distracting reprimands.</p>
<p>He can’t do it--he can’t <em> stop </em>--and it’s almost as frustrating as being asked to do this in the first place. </p>
<p>The fountain babbles loud, deafening, and the lampdisks hum overhead.</p>
<p>Hux curls and uncurls his fingers. Opens his eyes. “This doesn’t work. I’m simply thinking about not thinking.”</p>
<p>Ren sighs, then blinks back to meet Hux’s gaze. “It can help to focus on an object at first,” he says, as if it grieves him that Hux wasn’t born knowing this information.</p>
<p>Hux flexes his fingers. “Like<em> what </em>.”</p>
<p>“Anything,” Ren replies, if a bit more brightly. “Something organic--tied to the Force--is usually most effective.”</p>
<p>“What do you focus on?” Hux says, half-mocking.</p>
<p>Ren shakes his head. “It’s different for everyone. What works for me might not work for you. And it’s usually different every time.”</p>
<p>That’s completely unhelpful.</p>
<p>Hux has no interest in doing this for its own sake, but now that he’s started, failure stings. If Ren can do it--for all his instability--Hux should certainly be better at being <em> calm. </em></p>
<p>“Give me an example,” he says, clipped.</p>
<p>“It’s not difficult. Just--” Ren’s gaze flickers to the space between them, then back to Hux’s face. “--make up something and picture it in your mind.”</p>
<p>Hux gives him a thin smile. “My mind doesn’t work like that.”</p>
<p>“It seems like a requirement for a weapons engineer,” Ren returns, evenly. He still has hands open, perfectly still, all but limp.</p>
<p>“If I close my eyes and try to design a weapon, my mind will be anything but empty.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t say design a weapon,” Ren replies, with an indulgent air that’s more obnoxious than if he were getting frustrated. “I said use that side of your very empirical brain.”</p>
<p>“Very well.” Hux’s eyelids drop shut, and the darkness returns.</p>
<p>The fountain chatters.</p>
<p>
  <em> He’s looking for relics on Batuu-- </em>
</p>
<p>“Also your breathing.” Ren’s voice severs the train of thought.</p>
<p>“My breathing?”</p>
<p>“Yeah. Inhale deeply, exhale slowly.” Ren inhales and exhales audibly. “Like that.”</p>
<p>“I’ll attempt it.”</p>
<p>“Do it.”</p>
<p>Hux does, but instead the faint whistle of his breathing dominates his consciousness. He starts counting seconds on the inhale. Hits twenty before his lungs are screaming. He exhales all but gasping.</p>
<p>Ren snorts into the quiet as he recovers. “Are you counting?”</p>
<p>“Yes--”</p>
<p>“Don’t, if it distracts you.”</p>
<p>Hux tries not to, but he’s been known to count stairs and letters in words and taps of his own fingers in the absence of other priorities. Sometimes, despite them.</p>
<p>He inhales and exhales, but keeping himself from counting demands an entirely different type of focus. The earthy, floral fragrance of the garden cloys his senses.</p>
<p>“Are you picturing something?” Ren interrupts again.</p>
<p>“Am I disturbing you?” Hux retorts.</p>
<p>“No.” Ren takes another long inhale, like he’s enjoying the smell of whatever those flowers are. “Try that.”</p>
<p>Hux’s next exhale is an exasperated huff, but he cracks an eyelid to get a glimpse of the terrarium. A ficus grows on the edge of it, slim white trunk branching into broad, ovalesque leaves that reflect the artificial lighting.</p>
<p>Hux takes it in. The image lingers in the fore of his mind once his eyes are closed. He forcibly erases the cluttered backdrop of the rest of the greenery, the stepping stones beside it, even the dark sky above.</p>
<p>Here is the ficus in a plain white room. </p>
<p>Its roots sink deep into a symmetrical patch of rich brown earth on the floor. Light still catches on its leaves. They grow upward, angled nearly vertical, their undersides nearer, lighter, matte, veined almost white, as opposed to the rich green of the surfaces.</p>
<p>The plant’s trunk is ash-gray, notched in places, the roots entirely invisible. The plant stands about a meter high.</p>
<p>A terrarium plant most likely doesn’t require much watering, but the fountain must provide some kind of irrigation. Or possibly there’s some sort of overhead misting system in the metal seams between the--</p>
<p>“<em>Fuck.” </em></p>
<p>The white room has resolved into a mental image of the terrarium, which resolves into the actual terrarium as soon as Hux blinks back to it.</p>
<p>“What?” Ren’s eyes are still shut.</p>
<p>“I think I almost had it,” Hux replies, exasperated, “but then...” </p>
<p>“It takes practice.”</p>
<p>Hux lifts his hands from his knees, half a mind to press one on the floor and propel himself back up. “Well, I don’t have time to--”</p>
<p>“Look.” Ren opens his eyes, turns his hands over. “I can make it easier, if you want.”</p>
<p>Hux thins his lips, doesn’t lower his hand again. “What do you mean?’</p>
<p>“If you let me, I can make it easier,” Ren repeats, and something teasing glints in his eyes. “But I know how you feel about help.”</p>
<p>Hux scoffs. As if Ren isn’t twice as arrogant.</p>
<p>“Give me your hands,” Ren says, before Hux has time to generate an appropriately rude response. “If you want to do this.”</p>
<p>Hux curls his fingers instead. “What are you going to do to me?”</p>
<p>“Nothing.” Ren holds out his hands, palms up again. “Share enough of the Force to calm you down.”</p>
<p>“I am perfectly calm.” </p>
<p>“You’re never calm.”</p>
<p>It’s the strange earnestness in his voice that makes Hux extend his hands rather than roll his eyes. He places them on top of Ren’s upturned ones. </p>
<p>“Shit,” he hisses almost immediately, but doesn’t withdraw. Ren’s skin is rough, palms cool, fingers outright freezing, long enough to brush Hux’s pulse points.</p>
<p>“Corollary,” Ren says, not an apology for the temperature, merely an explanation.</p>
<p>Hux inhales. It isn’t as if his own are terribly warm either.</p>
<p>“Shall I close my eyes?” he offers.</p>
<p>“Please.”</p>
<p>Hux does, and at first there’s nothing: the same echo of the battle glare, the same rush of the fountain, the same darkness and leaping thoughts.</p>
<p>Until the cold starts.</p>
<p>It leaches into his hands from Ren’s skin, spreading up his wrists like the tingle of frostbite, before he goes numb without pain. He presses his fingers down just to prove he can feel them. Ren’s heart rate ticks steady beneath.</p>
<p>The cold creeps up his arms, reaches his shoulders and spreads into his chest, around his ribs and down into his legs. It’s less sharply cold now than blunt and heavy. </p>
<p>His limbs feel weighed down and bloodless, like on a world with slightly higher gravity. His bones jut into the transparisteel floor. His head reels, even in the steady blackness.</p>
<p>
  <em> You haven’t passed out in twenty years, don’t start-- </em>
</p>
<p>His stomach drops. The vertigo sensation of falling, the rush of it around his body, yet utterly noiseless. The darkness opens up around him, an endless devouring cavity.</p>
<p>It stops, or else he becomes used to it, because there’s no jarring landing. The void is still and absolute and unbroken. Until:</p>
<p>A single infrared mote materializes in the distance--the sky, he somehow knows. But it rushes toward him, supralight. It swells, expands. Drowns the light of the constellations that wink into, then out of existence, devoured by red.</p>
<p>The ground shudders under his feet, the red fills his line of vision with a flash like a solar flare--</p>
<p>He opens his eyes in the instant before it consumes him. His breathing comes shallow, his pulse wild. The observatory resolves around him: scent of plants, chatter of fountain, Ren’s callused hands.</p>
<p>Reality, not whatever lucid half-dream that was. He’d apparently been closer to the edge of sleep than he thought, despite the stims.</p>
<p>“<em>Fuck,” </em>he mutters.</p>
<p>“Did you feel it?” Ren’s grip tightens around his hand. His gaze searches Hux’s face, something eager, even hungry in it. </p>
<p>Hux pops his lips. “Feel <em> what </em>?”</p>
<p>“The Wound,” Ren says. “From Starkiller. What I told you about. It usually doesn’t feel like that.” His gaze drops momentarily. “We must have been deep in the Force.”</p>
<p>“If you say so,” Hux sighs, adrenaline already draining, like after any nightmare.</p>
<p>“You didn’t feel anything?”</p>
<p>“No,” Hux replies, adrenaline already draining. </p>
<p>Doubt pinches Ren’s eyebrows. “Are you sure?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” Hux says, clipped. “Nothing whatsoever. This doesn’t work.” He yanks his hands out of Ren’s grasp. </p>
<p>Ren’s fingers ball up, wrists sink to rest across his knees again. His gaze flicks down, mouth tightens into a resigned sort of frown. He shakes his head.</p>
<p>“Of course,” he murmurs, but sounds more disappointed than frustrated.</p>
<p>As if he actually thought Hux would be able to experience whatever metaphysical sensations he operates on.</p>
<p>Hux has no response to that. At once he’s so tired he <em> could </em>sleep.</p>
<p>He tips his chin back, studies the ceiling. The stars are already dimming. Far above the orbit of this room, morning approaches; the horizon will be glowing within an hour.</p>
<p>Some sycophantic part of his conditioning urges him to tell Ren that helped<em> ever-so </em> much, but Ren will hear at best the lie it is, at worst a caustic insult.</p>
<p>Hux sits in front of him in silence instead, as getting up seems a monumental effort. He follows Ren’s gaze to the window of transparisteel between their knees. ‘</p>
<p>Klicks below, a UA-TT cuts through a crowd, taking heavy blue fire. They watch it for a moment, together, without a word.</p>
<p>The triped has just broken through the throng when an alert chime from the comms table shatters the quiet. </p>
<p>Emergency sequence.</p>
<p>Ren swears in a language Hux doesn’t know, apparently startled, then extends a hand toward the desk across the observatory.</p>
<p>Hux barely ducks out of the way of his personal comlink, previously stowed with the rest of the installed tech. It lands in Ren’s hand with a soft slap, and Ren proffers it to him. </p>
<p>Hux takes it in a hurry, punching to answer it audio-only.</p>
<p>“Hux here,” he says, sounding drained in his own ears. “Report.”</p>
<p>Mitaka’s voice cuts sharp across the channel. “General, the spec-ops unit escorting the UA-TT delivery is under fire. They’ve been on the ground twenty standard minutes, and have taken ten casualties.”</p>
<p>“Shit,” Hux says, shutting his eyes. He would rub his eyes if not for the comlink in his hand.</p>
<p>“Is this near the secure depot?” Ren cuts in.</p>
<p>“Supreme Leader.” The nervous surprise in Mitaka’s tone is unmistakable, but he smooths it over quickly enough. “Yes, sir. There’s apparently been a leak, unless they’ve acquired the tech to locate it electronically.”</p>
<p>“Do what you can to trace it,” he orders, “but don’t waste too much time.”</p>
<p>“Yes, sir.”</p>
<p>“Have Signals continue to prioritize tracking the rebels’ next movements,” Hux amends. “Any information on the leak is secondary.”</p>
<p>“Yes, sir.”</p>
<p>Ren tilts his head to one side, as if contemplating a countermand, but then he meets Hux’s eyes. “Comm the unit on the ground, too,” he says. “Tell them I’ll arrive to back them up in fifteen.”</p>
<p>“Yes, Supreme Leader.” The dim echo of a tap on Mitaka’s datapad sounds through the connection. “Nothing else to report. Sirs.”</p>
<p>“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Hux replies. “Keep me updated via this frequency.”</p>
<p>“Yes, General,” the officer says. “Mitaka out.”</p>
<p>The comm clicks off, and Hux lowers it.</p>
<p>Ren meets his eyes again. “You should still try to rest.”</p>
<p>Hux shakes his head, stands. “I’ll sleep after we’ve won this.”</p>
<p>Ren knows better than to insist.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>“Why wasn’t I notified?”</p>
<p>Two ill-defined cycles later, Ren’s blue-cast head and shoulders hover above Hux’s personal comm, balanced between his elbows in the <em> Finalizer </em>’s main conference room. Even through the pixelation of Ren’s poor planetside signal, he’s obviously pissed--brows pinched, upper lip curling.</p>
<p>Hux drags the heel of his hand across his temple and through his hair, blinking slowly. Ren’s transmission came in less than two minutes after Hux finished a remote planning session with the <em> Conqueror </em>’s leadership</p>
<p>The <em> Conqueror </em>still isn’t here. Was held up in the Chommell sector.</p>
<p>The <em> Finalizer </em> has lost six more of its UA-TTs in the two days since the <em> Conqueror </em>should have reinforced them.</p>
<p>“General,” Ren says, with a distinct air of repeating himself for the thousandth time. </p>
<p>Hux laces his fingers on the table in front of him. Smiles with the corners of his mouth. “Notified of <em> what, </em>Supreme Leader?”</p>
<p>“You haven’t checked your inbox?”</p>
<p>“Given that I spent the past three hours strategizing via holo, no,” Hux replies, but he’s already reaching for his datapad. “And I thought you’d spent it in combat.”</p>
<p>“I had.” Ren’s gaze leaves the lens at a shout from behind him. </p>
<p>There isn’t much backdrop to make out, between the blue tint, fuzzy connection, and narrow range of Ren’s cam, but what Hux can see looks bombed out. Charred and broken metal juts from the ceiling in the corner, and the telltale dark pocks of blasterfire decorate the wall behind Ren. Pinpricks of daylight shine through, airbrushing his scarred cheek.</p>
<p>“I checked my alerts as soon as we got a lull,” Ren continues, but stops dead as soon as he sees Hux’s datapad enter the cam’s range. “Two transmissions from the <em> Penumbra</em>, almost right in a row. Take a look.”</p>
<p>Hux hasn’t had time to think of Kath or Batuu, or much of anything outside of Fondor’s orbit or the Order’s highest-level logistics in almost a week.</p>
<p>“Did they get Starling?” Hux asks, unable to stop the twinge of excitement at the prospect of an intelligence acquisition of that caliber, even on an utter backwater. Of some good news, finally.</p>
<p>“Just read them,” Ren says, discordantly grim.</p>
<p>Hux searches his inbox for <em> Sender = Penumbra </em>. Sure enough, two transmissions arrived during the planning session.</p>
<p>“Earlier one first,” Ren orders.</p>
<p>Hux would roll his eyes if they weren’t already affixed to the screen.</p>
<p>The <em> Penumbra </em>’s comms unit decrypted and auto-forwarded Kath’s message directly to Hux and Ren. </p>
<p>“What?<em> ” </em>Hux murmurs, lips parted as he skims the screen. </p>
<p>It’s a refutation of the mission’s entire objective:</p>
<p>
  <em> Resistance spy Vi Moradi deceased during interrogation. No sign of Resistance base. Batuu strategically useless. Miserable place. Returning to fleet. </em>
</p>
<p>Hux can’t help scoffing at the commentary. Kath apparently didn’t realize his exact verbiage would be passed upward. Everything about this is overly confident for a man whose life hangs in the narrow margin of his superiors’ mercy.</p>
<p>“He’d best have brought a corpse to verify this.” Hux gestures to the screen, looks back up at Ren. “Though this remains severe insubordination. I made the consequences of failure inescapably--</p>
<p>“Open the other transmission.”</p>
<p>“Yes,<em> sir </em>.” Hux pops his lips, swipes the second message open.</p>
<p>This transmission--an official casualty report from the <em> Penumbra </em>’s Combat Support Unit--is even more unthinkable.</p>
<p>Kath’s dead, along with every one of his troopers. The report narrates an unsettling sequence of events: four cycles’ radio silence from the ground team, until--out of thin air--the comm declaring the mission a failure in every way. </p>
<p>Then, within minutes, Kath’s entire mobile habitation unit had exploded upon liftoff from Batuu’s surface. Initial analyses of telemetry, debris scatter, and the shuttle’s mechanical vitals indicate it was a simple motivator failure. Possible manufacturing defect.</p>
<p>“What the hell?” Ren asks, before Hux has even looked up. His tone makes Hux want to slap him through the pixels: less interjection than <em> demand. </em></p>
<p>Hux shuts his eyes against a sharp response and a sudden weight in his limbs--exhaustion, and the impossibility of all of this. “I don’t know, Ren. I’ve seen nothing you haven’t.”</p>
<p>“It doesn’t make sense.” Ren bites his lip. “No word for days, then suddenly they had Starling? Interrogated her? <em> Killed </em>her in direct violation of orders, and then...blew up?”</p>
<p>“It sounds as if her death was unintent--”</p>
<p>“Your men are conditioned to avoid excess. There’s no excuse for offing a highly valuable prisoner.” Ren sounds barely contained, and the accusation in his tone is immutable.</p>
<p>“I’m not making excuses,” Hux retorts, balling a fist on the tabletop. It’s just reflective enough that his pale skin is a bright spot. “Mid-atmosphere incineration is kinder than what would’ve awaited him on the fleet.”</p>
<p>“Good,” Ren says, almost thoughtfully, trailing off to add, non-sequitur: “This isn’t right.”</p>
<p>Hux takes a calming breath. This conversation is now officially moot, yet Ren’s insisting on having it. “What do you mean?”</p>
<p>“Four days ago, Kath was convinced he’d found evidence of a Resistance facility. Was totally assured they’d have its location. Now, nothing.” Ren’s gaze darts above the cam lens again, but he’s distracted only momentarily. “Despite the fact that they apparently tortured Moradi to death.”</p>
<p>“So, let me make certain I’m understanding,” Hux returns, unctuous in his own ears. Ren’s ridiculous, and deserves every bit of disrespect and condescension he’ll read in Hux’s tone. “You insist we send a ground intelligence unit, against a far more prudent technical solution, and then you <em> don’t </em>trust their results?”</p>
<p>“It’s <em> strange</em>,” Ren insists.</p>
<p>He’s fucking transparent.</p>
<p>Hux sneers. “Allow me to further clarify: you distrust their results because they contradict the outcome you think the <em> Force </em> pointed to.”</p>
<p>“Fuck no!” Ren’s whole face tenses, and his lip twists up like it always does when he’s talking through his teeth. “I distrust these results because they constitute both insubordination and--”</p>
<p>A sudden peal like thunder cuts over him, frazzling the visual connection to black. A second crash resounds, the audio feed still live.</p>
<p>Hux’s pulse leaps, and he leans reflexively closer to the projection, suddenly white-knuckled. “<em> Ren-- </em>”</p>
<p>The connection crackles back to life, on the back of Ren’s head. He turns toward the cam, gaze darting feverishly.</p>
<p>“Was that a fucking IED?” Hux asks, all too tremulous. </p>
<p>There’s been a rash of homemade detonators following the trooper squadrons. It was really only a matter of time before one struck close to Ren.</p>
<p>“I don’t--” Ren starts.</p>
<p>“Supreme Leader?” calls a voice whose owner is out of sight, tinny through the connection.</p>
<p>“One <em> second, </em>Captain,” Ren yells over his shoulder, then turns back to Hux. His every visible muscle looks coiled for action.</p>
<p>“Go deal with whatever’s just exploded.” Hux forces his fingers to uncurl. “We’ll finish this discussion when you’re back on the ship.”</p>
<p>“Is that an order,” Ren returns, deadpan, but unmistakably humorless.</p>
<p>Hux scoffs, exasperated, and cuts the connection.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s two cycles before Ren returns to the <em> Finalizer</em>, the <em> Conqueror </em>’s infantry having arrived to rotate planetside. </p>
<p>They’ve little to accomplish but cleanup, though--Ren’s tactics tamped down the insurgency’s core factions and central locations. He apparently channeled his ire over Batuu <em> productively </em>for once. Hux has argument points prepared, just in case he’s still simmering over it.</p>
<p>But Ren doesn’t want to talk.</p>
<p>Ren doesn’t even want to drink.</p>
<p>He’s haggard. Pale and bloodshot and filthy. He has a bacta strip along his hairline, and he looks through Hux for the first ten minutes of an update in his chambers.</p>
<p>Then he sleeps.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Oridin City--or what’s left of it--is dismal under cloud cover. </p>
<p>Charred cloudscrapers aspire toward the sky like a petrified forest, gaping wiring and structural beams and shattered transparisteel. Between them, a few stray and rusty speeders trundle across phantom skylanes, flanked at intervals by Order patrol shuttles. The fires have gone out, but a diffuse pall of smoke lingers over the city, further filtering the sunlight. </p>
<p>To the north, the fumes over the exploded factory are dispersing with far less alacrity, sallow through the city’s haze. From his seat in the city courthouse’s repurposed deliberation room, Hux can only make out the bottom half of the cloud between the towers, but its hourglass column hasn’t changed in a week, frozen in time like a holo-still.</p>
<p>Hux ordered a hazmat containment team to deploy from the <em> Finalizer </em> as soon as the fighting around the factory came to a halt, but initial analyses show some of the radiation has already leaked into the city’s reservoir.</p>
<p>And the water crisis is but one of many crises the former insurgency leadership has no solutions for. Here in the deliberation room, the resources to change that constitute one of several cards Hux holds.</p>
<p>“General,” their union spokesperson, a pink-skinned Selkath in sooty fatigues, is saying, “we appreciate the First Order’s generosity toward our people, but we fear it does not come without a price.”</p>
<p>Hux laces his fingers and leans back against his seat. “‘Fear,’ Representative, is a strong word. Compliant, productive worlds will follow the First Order to galactic dominance.”</p>
<p>“As your slaves,” the Selkath shoots back.</p>
<p>“Like the Empire before us, the Order condones no form of slavery. We do, however, empower free citizens to contribute to the greater good.”</p>
<p>“Is that what you call your war machine?” The Selkath’s human colleague, some kind of tactical commander <em> (see how that worked out) </em> slams their fist on the tabletop. “The greater good?”</p>
<p>For the first time in an hour, Ren stirs beside Hux. “Our ‘war machine’ could have wiped all life from this city upon arrival, yet we chose not to.” His gaze flicks quickly around the table, ephemeral eye contact with every rebel present. “We can always reconsider.”</p>
<p>Hux makes no effort to dilute the threat. Ren hates being talked over, and besides, Hux always takes the Order’s firepower leverage for granted. Perhaps Ren perceived this group needed a reminder.</p>
<p>It’s taken another three standard cycles--four of Fondor’s days--for the remaining rebel leadership to surrender and agree to negotiate a treaty with the Order and the Magistrate, whom the Order is semi-officially backing.</p>
<p>Hux isn’t particularly invested in Fondor’s intraplanetary politics, but the citizenry needs to be kept productive. </p>
<p>On top of the critical water aid and reconstruction projects, First Order subsidies will augment the workers’ current wages and improve living conditions under the existing government. However, the people are insisting on some sort of elected council to oversee the distribution of these funds, convinced--not irrationally--that the Magistrate will only use it to rebuild their burned-out parks and mansions. </p>
<p>But the rebels still needed putting in their place. It’s only at the Order’s mercy that they’re sitting at this table.</p>
<p>Hux is also reluctant to discourage Ren from speaking, at this point. He’s been relatively taciturn for the past two cycles. Quieter than Hux has seen him since early sessions with Snoke, when he’d return to the fleet after two months, gaunt and dead-eyed under his drapery. </p>
<p>At least the bluster indicates he’s engaged.</p>
<p>The insurgents’ only response, though, is to share a less-than-conspiratorial glance, anxiety cold and naked in their eyes. </p>
<p>The Selkath nudges a human beside them, then says, “Break.”</p>
<p>Beside Hux, Fondor’s Magistrate inclines his well-coiffed silver head. “Certainly.” </p>
<p>As the rebels immediately push back their chairs, the Magistrate meets Hux’s eyes, lifts an eyebrow.</p>
<p>Hux waves him off, already rising. “The Supreme Leader and I will confer privately.”</p>
<p>He cuts his eyes at Ren, then toward the closed entrance of the ensuite they’ve been using as a breakroom.</p>
<p>Ren follows him up--silently, of course--but waves the doors open with a flick of his wrist. He follows Hux into a grayish room with scuffed floors. A disconnected caf maker sits lonely on a wall-length counter, and two white plast chairs dominate the central space. </p>
<p>Hux approaches one but doesn’t sit. Rests his elbows on the high back and holds Ren’s gaze. “Thank you for saying that.”</p>
<p>Ren just shakes his head. “This has to speed up,” he replies, voice taut as a grappling cable, stretched thin with suppressed emotion. “The actual Resistance is still out there--somewhere--and we’re sitting here while you beg these people to let you save them from nuclear runoff.”</p>
<p>Hux bites back a sharp retort. That he isn’t begging, and this is just politics, <em> Supreme Leader. </em>If Ren wants to claim the title, it’s past time he started accepting it implies a significant portion of duty hours spent in conference rooms.</p>
<p>But it’s his <em> somewhere </em>that gives him away. </p>
<p>“This isn’t still about Batuu.” Hux shifts his weight, but holds Ren’s gaze, a dare to contradict him.</p>
<p>Ren doesn’t quite. “The Resistance wasn’t setting up on Batuu,” he says, almost stilted, like it’s some kind of mantra. “We need to stop wasting time and find out where they actually are. It isn’t here.”</p>
<p>“No,” Hux agrees, “but their support was. They failed to stop us from acquiring this world’s highly valuable production chain, but it’s worth our time to secure it.”</p>
<p>“Not this much time.” Ren’s fingers work idly at his side. “And this production chain’s blown to shit. We’ll have to buy from somewhere else for the time being, anyway.” </p>
<p>“Hence why I thanked you.” </p>
<p>Ren nods and thins his lips in lieu of a reply. He’s better rested than he’s been in a week, his stubble cleared and his eyes bright. The new graze on his forehead has vanished irretrievably, leaving only the saber scar, still fading. But he still looks somehow forlorn, mouth pulled too tight, brows barely creased.</p>
<p>The chair Hux is leaning against is between them, and it suddenly feels like a duracrete barrier, the short distance impenetrable, uncrossable.</p>
<p>The leather of Hux’s gloves creaks, and he offers what he can, for now. “We did all we could on Batuu.”</p>
<p>It’s a lie even as it emerges, though. The recon Hux suggested wouldn’t have enabled a capture or interrogation, but those only count if they’re <em> successful. </em>If they yield actionable intelligence, not just waste time and lives. </p>
<p>With patience, the analytical cell might have been able to capture some bona fide pattern-of-life information on Starling, eventually enabling a capture op--and immediate transfer to the <em> Finalizer. </em>Even though there’s no base or larger Resistance presence on Batuu itself, Moradi would have likely possessed some information of intelligence value.</p>
<p>But at least she’s been eliminated. One fewer subversive to worry about.</p>
<p>(Ren’s dreams and feelings and delusions accomplished <em> something</em>, anyway.)</p>
<p>“I know.” Ren looks past Hux to the defunct caf maker, fingers curling and uncurling at his side. “It just...felt like this was--it. Was right.”</p>
<p>He looks so miserable Hux almost wishes it were, no matter the requisite <em> I-told-you-so </em>that would have followed.</p>
<p>“The intelligence said otherwise,” Hux says, with a brief dip of his head. “All we can do is get the next cell.”</p>
<p>“If we find them.” Ren meets Hux’s eyes again. “After we’re done here.”</p>
<p>“We’ll--”</p>
<p>A buzz from the ensuite’s doorway cuts Hux off.</p>
<p>“Supreme Leader,” says what sounds like one of the Magistrate’s aides, then--almost an afterthought: “General. Did you require more time to confer?”</p>
<p>Ren’s gaze darts between Hux’s face and the door, the question in it evident.</p>
<p><em> Do we? </em>Hux mouths.</p>
<p>Ren hesitates, but shakes his head. </p>
<p>“We’ll be out to continue presently,” Hux calls toward the door, finally rounding the chair.</p>
<p>As he passes Ren, it’s mere instinct that brings his hand--for an instant--to Ren’s shoulder.</p>
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